A Lethem, Region 9, businesswoman was yesterday afternoon robbed of over $6M in cash and raw gold by two men minutes after she left the Ogle airport and one of the suspects was later caught by police after the getaway car crashed.
Her family believes that someone alerted the bandits that she had the cash on her and that the robbery was planned.
Shireen Sheik, 26 years old of Tabatinga, Lethem and Vreed-en-Hoop, West Coast Demerara was held up at gun point, by two men on a CG motorcycle, at the traffic lights at the junction of the Turkeyen Railway embankment and the University of Guyana Road where her driver had stopped. She was on her way to her Vreed-en-Hoop home and was supposed to conduct business in the capital today.
Police in a press release said that the men rode up to the vehicle, threw their motorcycle in front of it to block it from moving and then held the woman at gunpoint. They took away a bag containing $6.3M, a quantity of raw gold and documents and then hijacked a blue Toyota Allion turning north onto UG road in their bid to escape. That was short-lived as they crashed into a trench a few yards from the Specialty Hospital.
The robber with the bag with the loot managed to escape but the other perpetrator was caught by a police traffic rank who was on patrol in the vicinity at the time, police said.
It is believed that the robbers were tipped off that the woman was coming to the city with the large amount of cash and gold.
“There is no way that they just picked her at random, no way. She is to be blamed also and we vex with her because she isn’t suppose to be walking with all that cash. Someone either from Lethem here or at the airport when she passing through security saw the cash and tip off the men”, a relative told Stabroek News via phone last evening.
The police said that investigations are ongoing.
