Police on the East Bank of Demerara (EBD) are on the hunt for two males who escaped with over $500,000 in cash and jewellery after beating a 20-year-old shop owner in Diamond.
Guyana Times understands that about 10:00h on Monday, the men went to the shop posing as customers and attacked the young woman, brutally assaulting her before making good their escape from the Section B, Block X, Diamond, EBD business.
The young woman, Fazeena Bacchus, called “Peaches”, told this publication that she was alone when one of the men entered the shop, attached to the home, with an empty five-gallon water bottle in his hand and made a request to purchase a bottle of water.
After observing that the bottle had dents, the woman said she informed the man that he had to pour the water purchased into the bottle he brought, and she handed him a funnel to do same.
While he was doing that, the other suspect came into the shop and bought a drink. Upon receiving his change, he called for some cigarettes. After the shopkeeper gave him the cigarettes, the man then ordered some mints.
“When I gave him the mints, the other one (who had finished throwing out the water by then) scrambled me (over the counter through the small opening) and I started screaming… He shoved me down and pulled himself inside through the hole and put the gun inside my mouth, telling me “Shut up or I gon kill yuh”. Right away I stop talk and he turn and tell the other one, “Jump in, dawg, I got she” and the other guy came in through the hole and when he reach inside (the shop), he opened the door under the counter that we used to get outside,” she related.
Bacchus said that the perpetrators then took her into the house, while “pushing and tugging” her. They went straight to her bedroom, where they removed $340,000 in cash and her rings from her fingers before pushing her to the ground and running back to the shop, where they also took the day’s sales and her cellphone.
Meanwhile, one of Bacchus’s neighbours who had heard her scream had gone to inform another neighbour. After escaping from the shop, the gunmen went over to the neighbour’s house and also robbed him of an undisclosed sum of cash and valuables.
They also reportedly chased another neighbour further up the street while threatening to shoot him. However, he managed to evade the gunmen by hiding in a nearby yard.
The two bandits then made good their escape.
Investigations are ongoing.
