A Vreed-en-Hoop, West Bank Demerara, businessman was robbed of a quantity of cash by two gunmen who pretended to be customers around 11 am yesterday.
Proprietor of RH Persaud Paint Shop located at 4 A New Road Vreed-en- Hoop, Ramnarace Persaud, was gun butted and robbed of about $60,000 after he attended to two men who posed as customers. The getaway car was subsequently found by police abandoned on the West Bank shortly after.
In recounting the ordeal to this newspaper, Persaud said he was in his business place when two men entered and began inquiring about paints.
He said one of the men asked him the cost for a tin of paint while the other was interested in purchasing some putty. Persaud said “the first one paid for his paint and the other one paid for his putty and I give them their change.”
The man said, due to the layout of the store, the man who purchased the putty had to go around to another section to collect his purchase. He said “I open the door and push it and he (one of the bandits) run in front of me and tell me `big man don’t mek noise’”. The man also added that he put up resistance and the bandit then brandished a gun at him as he told him to be quiet. His accomplice then ran into the kitchen where his wife was.
He said “when he ran in the kitchen he reach my wife who hear me making noise.”
He said his wife became suspicious after she heard noise coming from a section of the store where customers are not allowed to be in. Persaud’s wife said when she came face-to-face with the bandit, who had a gun, she ran out via the kitchen door and locked the door behind leaving the bandits and her husband in the house.
She also said that she began to seek help for her husband and screamed for her daughter, who was upstairs, to close the door.
Persaud also stated that one of the bandits tried to duct tape his mouth. By this time, his daughter, who heard her mother’s scream, came down and asked the man what he was doing to her father.
The bandit then told the man and his daughter to remain silent. The other bandit, who was in the kitchen, then went into the drawer in the shop and grabbed the cash there at which point his accomplice gun butted Persaud before leaving.
Persaud also stated that while the two men were inside, another one was outside keeping an eye out. The bandits escaped in a car that was parked nearby. The police were then called and the getaway car was discovered abandoned.
This was the first time the Persauds were robbed since they opened their business 20 years ago.
