Berbice Commander promises police escort for business owners with large cash deposits 

Following a multi-million dollar robbery in Rose Hall, Corentyne Berbice on Monday, the Police Commander is urging persons transporting large sums of cash to contact the police to escort them “free of cost.”

Commander Boodnarine Persaud told reporters on Tuesday that he has already instructed all subordinate officers in charge of every station in the region that “if business people request our help to escort cash, we are here to serve and protect and we will give the assistance free of cost.”

He said this is all part of plants to ensure the safety of citizens in the region.

“We will ensure a policeman go, if you have large sums in the bank we will do that because we want to see our citizens safe,” Commander Persaud said.

Speaking about the police’s system of “extra duty fees” for doing private work, the Commander assured “just for the safety of our people in Berbice, I don’t mind.”

He further urged business owners to hire private security and to also install high-definition surveillance cameras as means of deterring criminal activities in the region.

Meanwhile, hours after an Albion businesswoman Nalini Mangali and her staff were robbed of $18.5 million in cash and millions more in cheques, police in the region arrested six suspects. Mangali, who had visited the Republic Bank Rose Hall location, was accosted outside by a lone gunman.

So far, police in the region have recovered the suspected motorcycle used in the robbery and an ID card. While investigators have not been able to confirm if the motorcycle was stolen, Commander Persaud said they are in contact with the Guyana Revenue Authority to find out who it is registered to.

“We are working and hoping to get a breakthrough,” Commander Persaud stated.

The Commander revealed that five of seven suspects in custody were previously arrested for armed robberies.

Police are also investigating whether the robbery was staged given that the businesswoman and her husband were robbed several times before.

“We are doing work on the inside, because of the way the robbery occurred it could have been that someone traced them,” Commander Persaud said.

Mangali and her husband operate Permaul’s Trading and Distribution.