Resh­ma Ra­goonath

Two armed men made off with $500,000 from a Sco­tia Bank Au­to­mat­ed Teller Ma­chine (ATM) in Princes Town yes­ter­day, af­ter they am­bushed two se­cu­ri­ty guards while they were in the process of re­plen­ish­ing the ma­chine. Ac­cord­ing to po­lice re­ports, three G4 Se­cu­ri­ty guards went to the Sco­tia­bank ATM?at Craig­nish, Princes Town, around mid­day to at­tend to the cash sup­ply.

Two of the guards were armed with re­volvers in the ar­mored van. When they ar­rived at the ATM the armed guards dis­em­barked and left the dri­ver in the ve­hi­cle. He was un­armed. As they ap­proached the ATM, a man ex­it­ed the ATM and was joined by an­oth­er who was stand­ing on a stair­case at the side of the build­ing. The men took the se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers' guns and two bags of mon­ey, ran to­wards a near­by gas sta­tion and en­tered a wait­ing ve­hi­cle which sped off.

A po­lice pa­trol, pass­ing at the time, pur­sued the ve­hi­cle which head­ed on­to the Tasker Road. A shoot-out en­sued be­tween the po­lice and the men. The men aban­doned their ve­hi­cle and es­caped in­to some near­by bush­es. In­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing.