Derek Achong

Al­most two weeks af­ter PriceS­mart's Mau­si­ca branch was robbed of over $1.5 mil­lion in cash, the store's as­sis­tant man­ag­er ap­peared in court yes­ter­day charged with the crime.

Ker­lon Smith, 33, of Even­tide Court, Trinci­ty, was de­nied bail and re­mand­ed in­to cus­tody af­ter ap­pear­ing be­fore Mag­is­trate Deb­by-Ann Bas­saw charged with the rob­bery.

Min­utes af­ter Smith's ap­pear­ance, an­oth­er man, Clin­ton John, 22, of Priz­gar Road, San Juan, was charged with re­ceiv­ing a cell phone which was stolen dur­ing the rob­bery.

Like Smith, John's crim­i­nal record trac­ing had not been processed at the time of his ap­pear­ance, forc­ing Bas­saw to re­mand him in­to cus­tody as well. Smith is ex­pect­ed to re-ap­ply for bail when he reap­pears in court on Mon­day. John will reap­pear the day af­ter.

A press re­lease is­sued by the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice yes­ter­day evening said more ar­rests are ex­pect­ed in con­nec­tion with the rob­bery.

"Head of the Crim­i­nal In­ves­ti­ga­tions De­part­ment (CID), Se­nior Supt Rad­cliff Box­hill, states that while two per­sons have thus far been charged in con­nec­tion with the rob­bery, oth­er sus­pects are still at large and there­fore the in­ves­ti­ga­tion re­mains ac­tive," the re­lease said.

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, around 11 pm on Ju­ly 3, three armed men en­tered the store af­ter it had closed that evening. The men barged in­to a meet­ing of se­nior staff and forced them to lead them to the store's safe.

The cash was placed in sev­er­al bags and the men fled the scene with­out fir­ing a gun­shot. Al­though an all-points bul­letin was is­sued by po­lice and road blocks set up af­ter the rob­bery no one was ar­rest­ed.

Smith and John were ar­rest­ed on Thurs­day af­ter an in­tense in­ves­ti­ga­tion by po­lice of­fi­cers from sev­er­al spe­cialised units in­clud­ing the Crim­i­nal Gang and In­tel­li­gence Unit (CGIU) and the North­ern Di­vi­sion CID.

In­sp Mark Ma­haraj and Sgt Clifton Thomas are con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.