Derek Achong

Two men have been ar­rest­ed af­ter a mid-af­ter­noon jew­el­ry heist in down­town Port-of-Spain. The rob­bery came af­ter an­oth­er store in Port-of-Spain was robbed of $2.5 mil­lion in items and pre­cious stones on Sat­ur­day af­ter­noon. Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, around 3 pm on Mon­day, Silas Khan and his wife, Gabrielle, were at­tend­ing to cus­tomers at their store at Time Plaza, Hen­ry Street, Port-of-Spain.

The cou­ple told po­lice two men en­tered the store, raised their T-shirts and point­ed to guns tucked in­to their pants. One of the rob­bers or­dered the own­ers and the cus­tomers to stand at one side of the store while his ac­com­plice cleared the show­cas­es of gold and di­a­mond jew­el­ry. They then ran through the shop­ping mall to­wards east Port-of-Spain.

Po­lice from the Port-of-Spain CID, led by ASP Ajith Per­sad, re­spond­ed. Al­most an hour af­ter, the de­tec­tives vis­it­ed an apart­ment build­ing at Nel­son Street, Port-of-Spain, where they ar­rest­ed two sus­pects. The po­lice did not re­cov­er the stolen jew­el­ry, which was val­ued at over $100,000, and be­lieve the thieves hid their loot af­ter the rob­bery.

The sus­pects were be­ing in­ter­ro­gat­ed by in­ves­ti­ga­tors up to late yes­ter­day. They were ex­pect­ed to take part in an iden­ti­fi­ca­tion pa­rade yes­ter­day. Mean­while, the sec­ond sus­pect in Sat­ur­day's jew­el heist was held by po­lice on Mon­day morn­ing. The 25-year-old was ar­rest­ed at his home in Laven­tille.

The rob­bery oc­curred around 3 pm on Sat­ur­day at Khan's Gold De­signs, Fred­er­ick Street, Port-of-Spain. Two armed men en­tered the store and threat­ened em­ploy­ees be­fore es­cap­ing with jew­el­ry. The first sus­pect, an 18-year-old, al­so from Laven­tille, was ar­rest­ed short­ly af­ter­wards near the East Dry Riv­er.

Some of the stolen jew­el­ry was re­cov­ered on the first sus­pect, but in­ves­ti­ga­tors did not re­cov­er any of the rest dur­ing the sec­ond sus­pect's ar­rest yes­ter­day. Armed-rob­bery charges are ex­pect­ed to be laid against them lat­er this week. In­sp Sa­hadeo Singh, Cpl Sankar and PC Clarke are in­ves­ti­gat­ing both rob­beries.