RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

De­spite be­ing dressed as San­ta Claus with a hat and fake beard, a rob­ber and his ac­com­plices elud­ed cap­ture af­ter they tied up four work­ers at a store in San Fer­nan­do and es­caped with cash, phones and au­to­mo­tive sup­plies.

Po­lice said at 9.15 am on Mon­day, su­per­vi­sor Mi­tra Per­sad, 43, ware­house at­ten­dants Josi­ah Au­tar, 37, and Ra­jesh Roopan, 19, and dri­ver Nigel Her­cules, 53, were on du­ty at Au­to­mo­tive and In­dus­tri­al Sup­plies Ltd in San Fer­nan­do, when the three masked and armed men en­tered the premis­es.

One sus­pect wore a San­ta hat, a hock­ey mask, and a fake San­ta beard, while the oth­ers were al­so dis­guised.

The thieves an­nounced a rob­bery and tied up the vic­tims with duct tape.

Per­sad was robbed of a Mo­toro­la Ra­zor cell phone val­ued at US$500, TT$5,000 in gold jew­ellery, his dri­ver’s per­mit, and TT$300 in cash.

Au­tar was re­lieved of $250 in cash. Her­cules lost his Sam­sung A31 phone val­ued at $1,200, $1,100 in cash, and sev­er­al per­son­al items. Roopan was robbed of his Sam­sung S22 Ul­tra phone val­ued at US$450 and TT$100  in cash.

The sus­pects loaded as­sort­ed au­to­mo­tive paints, sand­pa­per, and oth­er sup­plies on­to the com­pa­ny’s white Isuzu truck, val­ued at TT$150,000, be­fore flee­ing in the ve­hi­cle.

Some­time lat­er, the vic­tims freed them­selves and alert­ed the Mon Re­pos po­lice.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors, in­clud­ing PC Moses and PC Khan, re­spond­ed, re­cov­er­ing the truck aban­doned on Bronte Es­tate Road, San Fer­nan­do. Two stolen cell phones were found in a bushy area near Coop­er Grange Street. The oth­er items re­main miss­ing.

Po­lice processed the scene but there were no work­able fin­ger­prints. CCTV footage is un­der re­view, and en­quiries are on­go­ing.