Three Kaieteur News (KN) employees were held at gunpoint and robbed yesterday in their Saffon Street office by bandits who later carted off a safe with millions of dollars in what the newspaper’s owner said was an inside job.
An ex-employee of the newspaper who was recognised despite being masked is now in custody and police are on the hunt for his two accomplices. The police last night named the former employee in custody as Ryan Wharton.
According to the police, the robbery occurred at about 1.15 am yesterday at the KN office in Charlestown.
The three victims who were put to lie face-down and robbed during the raid were identified as 63-year-old Noel Junior, a security guard who was on duty at the time; Joshua Junior, 35, also a security guard and one of Kaieteur News’ graphic designers, 20-year-old Wayne Little.
It was said that Noel Junior was robbed of $5,000 while Joshua Junior was robbed of a Samsung S7 cellular phone valued $40, 000 and Little was robbed of one Blue Redmi cellular phone valued at $44,000.
The company itself was robbed of an undisclosed amount of cash which was in a safe in the Accounts Department.
According to the police, enquiries revealed that at about 1.15 am yesterday, the three bandits arrived in a gold-coloured Spacio motorcar and stopped directly in front of the KN building. The registration number of the car is still unknown.
Owner and Publisher of Kaieteur News, Glenn Lall, yesterday related to Stabroek News what had transpired.
“One gunman entered the building and stick up the two security guards and put them in a room downstairs and put them to lay face down and then a minute after, two men entered the building walked straight upstairs, break the accounts door, broke one desk drawer, take out what they had to take out with the safe, came downstairs and entered their car and disappeared,” said the owner.
Millions in cash
Although he could not give an estimate as to how much money was in the safe, he described it as “millions in cash”.
He said that only the bandit who initially walked into the building and held the security guards at gunpoint was armed. He also noted that his two security guards were unarmed.
In security camera footage which was seen by Stabroek News, a security guard had opened the door for one of the KN staffers to go out to buy food. The footage further showed that shortly after, the Spacio pulled up and parked in front of the door.
The armed bandit then exited the car and barged into the building where he dragged both security guards and placed them in a room. The staffer who had exited to purchase food returned at the same time and he was forced into the room with the guards.
The gunman in the building then signalled to his accomplices that the coast was clear and they then quickly entered and went straight upstairs.
The footage captured when the two bandits came back downstairs within minutes with a square white box which is suspected to be the safe with the cash. The safe appeared heavy to handle for the two suspects. They then switched off the light before exiting the building and then escaped in the car.
Lall told Stabroek News that he believed that the robbery was an inside job.
“What we found out is that an armed security or an unarmed security could’ve prevented that…this what transpired here was an inside job”, he said.
Asked what had led him to that conclusion, he said “one of the suspects who was captured on tape was an ex-employee and almost all of the staff recognized him…he used to be a research assistant.”
Lall said that the bandit was in the building on Friday and spent over four hours inside, and made different claims that he was there to visit Lall himself and other employees. However, he said that the man never went up to his office to see him.
“He was here on Friday and he spent more than four hours in the building. He told the staff that he came to see me and never saw me…within those four hours he was talking with another staff. Then he told the security when he was here on Friday that he came to see an employee and then another employee said he came to see another employee, but he end up spending his time talking to only one employee.”
The police were yesterday questioning the employee.
