The police are “wrapping up” their investigations into the activities of a criminal gang based at Craig, East Bank Demerara, whose alleged leader was recently killed during a shootout with police and several members detained, and will soon be seeking legal advice, Crime Chief Wendell Blanhum said yesterday.
Blanhum, while pointing out that no additional arrests have been made disclosed that “investigators should be wrapping up by tomorrow [today].” He told Stabroek News that between that time and the end of Monday legal advice will be sought and charges instituted.
Eight persons were arrested in the house at Craig following the shootout last Tuesday while two taxi drivers were picked up in the West Demerara area later that day. Police have since said that they are looking for four more persons.
The court has granted the police additional time, which ends on Monday, to keep the men in detention. Police believe the men are part of a gang which was responsible for the murders of mall owner Ganesh Ramlall and Nandy Park resident Travis Rudder and an armed attack on a judge and her family. A gun found at the scene of the shootout has been proven through ballistics testing to have been used in the two murders. Two watches found in the house with the men were identified as having been stolen during the invasion of the judge’s Felicity, East Coast Demerara home.
The police seem confident that they have made a major breakthrough in a number of high-profile investigations when they cornered alleged gang leader and wanted man Rolston Morrison and the eight others in an apartment at First Street, Craig. A shoot-out with a 25-member SWAT team resulted in the death of Morrison and an alleged gang member being wounded. A policeman was also wounded during the exchange.
The police believe too that they have crushed the criminal enterprise whose members were “hired hands.”
According to the police, it was after receiving information from a concerned citizen that ranks travelled to the area and surrounded the house around 2 am. They said they came under fire and a shootout ensued. However based on the version of residents there was no shootout. One resident said the ranks came from all corners and would have kicked down a door leading to the apartment before opening fire.
Two men reportedly related during interrogation how they planned the armed robbery on Ramlall and subsequently transported the killers, including Morrison, to and from the businessman’s La Jalousie home. Doubts had been raised that Ramlall’s killing was a robbery. It has been argued that the modus operandi did not fit with such a motive and it appeared the man was the victim of an execution-style killing.
