A Port Mourant poultry dealer was robbed yesterday afternoon by a lone gunman, who made off with the day’s sales and her savings.
The attack on “Ryan’s Chicken Shop” was just the latest on the Corentyne, where residents earlier this week took to the streets to protest the spate of armed robberies.
Co-proprietor of the business, Sabita Nandoo, called ‘Babita’ lost around $200,000 in the robbery but escaped the ordeal unharmed. The woman told Stabroek News that she was at the back of the business rekindling the fire side that went out due to rain. She said she was crouching while trying
to get the fire going. “I feel somebody walking next to me. When I turn, I see somebody foot… I rise up and see a man in a mask,” she recounted.
The robber was also wearing a black, long sleeved jersey, which covered his fingers. “I couldn’t have see any [physical features], only his eyes,” a still visibly-shaken Nandoo said.
According to the woman, the man ordered her to empty the bag that had the money from the sales of the day. She complied, she said, but the man was dissatisfied with the amount of cash he received and demanded more. “I turn and tell he me na get more money, that business slow and this is all I have.
He was determined and he pulled his shirt and took out a gun from his waist,” Nandoo recalled. The woman further explained that after pulling out the gun, the robber pointed it at her and told her to walk in to her nearby home.
Nandoo noted that she was also instructed not to scream. “I do what he told because I was home alone. I go in the kitchen and tell him don’t do me nothing; I would give you the money… I handed him a bag with about $160,000 that was under the fridge,” she added.
Still unsatisfied with the amount of cash he received, the man asked for jewellery in turn but Nandoo told him all she had was Brazilian jewellery. Afterward, the man instructed her to stay in the kitchen and not to make any noise. However, she disobeyed and followed him back into the chicken shop but she managed to alert the man to her presence and he once more pointed the gun at her and repeated his previous orders.
“He walked out and when he reached to the front of the shop he pulled out the masked and put it in his pocket,” Nandoo recalled. It was also stated that when the man reached on the public road, a white car, with no licence plate, picked him up.
Police arrived soon after a few calls were made.
