Ak­ile Si­mon

Po­lice be­lieve they have made a ma­jor break­through in­to sev­er­al rob­beries on Las Cuevas beach, when two men, who es­caped through the moun­tains af­ter rob­bing a British fam­i­ly and four T&T na­tion­als, ear­ly last week, were ar­rest­ed dur­ing an ex­er­cise at their Cau­ra Road, Tu­na­puna, homes on Fri­day. The sus­pects re­mained in po­lice cus­tody up to late yes­ter­day, and were ex­pect­ed to be put on a se­ries of iden­ti­fi­ca­tion pa­rades in con­nec­tion with oth­er rob­beries in the dis­trict.

A shot­gun and cut­lass be­lieved to have been used in the at­tack were seized, and items stolen from the vic­tims re­cov­ered. What made this in­ci­dent a bit alarm­ing to in­ves­ti­ga­tors was the route the rob­bers nor­mal­ly use while mak­ing their es­cape. "They flee through the for­est off the North Coast Road, climb the moun­tain and make it safe­ly to their Cau­ra home," said Snr Supt Theophilus Cum­mings, head of the North­ern Di­vi­sion yes­ter­day. Ac­cord­ing to po­lice, British cou­ple, Luick Teg­n­er his wife, Gin­ny, both, 45, and their two chil­dren, aged sev­en and nine, re­spec­tive­ly, were on the beach around 4.30 pm on Wednes­day, when two men, one armed with a cut­lass and the oth­er a shot,gun, ap­proached and an­nounced a hold-up.

The sus­pects or­dered the vic­tims to hand over every­thing they had. The vis­i­tors were re­lieved of two gold rings val­ued $9,000 and $250.

Randy Jack­son, of Rio Claro; Keisha Hen­ry, of Wood­brook; Sean O'Brien, of Mar­aval, and An­tho­ny Alkins, of Cas­cade, were al­so robbed of four cell­phones, three gold rings, a gold chain, an ipod, a dig­i­tal cam­era and cash. The men quick­ly made their es­cape through the for­est off the North Coast Road. A re­port was made to Mara­cas Bay Po­lice Sta­tion. Snr Supt Cum­mings, Sgt Archibald, ag Cpl Gar­rette and PC Sookram re­ceived in­for­ma­tion on Fri­day af­ter­noon, and raid­ed two homes on Cau­ra Roy­al Road, Tu­na­puna.

Flash­back

Al­most three weeks ago, British cou­ple Pe­ter Greene, 65, and his wife Muri­um, 59, were chopped se­vere­ly and left for dead, dur­ing a rob­bery at­tempt at their Ba­co­let, To­ba­go home. A 25-year-old To­ba­go man has since been charged in con­nec­tion with the in­ci­dent.