A businesswoman from Dundee Village, Mahaicony, East Coast Demerara, is nursing injuries after she was beaten in the head with a gun by armed perpetrators who stormed her premises on Friday.
She was also tied up and robbed of cash, jewellery and electronics.
The woman, 32-year-old Dhanmattie Mahadeo called ‘Sherry’, is the co-owner of Sherry’s Agri Centre.
She told the News Room that she was in her office when a heavily tinted Nissan Bluebird car pulled up in front her premises. She said two men exited, wearing face masks, while a third man remained in the driver’s seat.
The men, acting suspiciously, asked if she had chicken feed for sale.
When she told them she hadn’t the feed, they then asked for two packs of fertilizers instead.
“When I put the first pack of fertilizer in the plastic bag, the two men jumped over the counter and one of them lash me on the head with the gun and they duct tape up my hand behind my back, my neck and they ask me where the money and gold,” Mahadeo related.
The woman said she had a total of $4.2 million in cash and cheques ($2.7 M in cash) which she gave to them.
The perpetrators then took her into the house and tied her feet with a bedsheet and removed her gold jewellery while taking more that was in the house belonging to her husband; a total of $2 million in gold was handed over.
The men also removed the DVR, CCTV cameras, three cellular phones, an iPad, and a computer.
Mahadeo said that the bandits also tied up her female worker before they escaped with the loot. Valuables, including a cell phone and cash, were stolen from her female worker as well.
According to the woman, she managed to free her foot from the bedsheet and ran to her mother’s house located some 10 minutes away.
There, contact was made with the police and they arrived shortly after.
Meanwhile, the businesswoman said that an hour prior, a man visited her and stated that he was a researcher from a government agency in Burma.
She said the man requested to enter her business place and appeared as though he was checking her products while texting on his cellphone; he subsequently left.
Mahadeo said she made a call to one of the agriculture agencies that usually send extension officers to her place and they indicated that they did not send anyone.
She suspects that person is also one of the perpetrators.
An investigation is underway, no-one has been arrested.
