Bandits snatch $1.5M, loaded firearm from businesswoman
In a daring midday robbery Thursday, bandits snatched a bag containing $1.5M, a loaded firearm and three smartphones, from 41-yearold Elda Belle of Queenstown Georgetown outside Jialing Motors at Charlotte and Oronoque Streets, Georgetown.
Taxi driver, Richard Bellamy, who was transporting the woman, was shot in the left leg and is now a patient at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation. According to information received by this publication, Belle, a businesswoman in the mining sector, along with her regular taxi driver, Bellamy, left her Queenstown home sometime around 10am yesterday to collect a cheque from a mining company at another location in the city. The distraught woman related that upon leaving there, she and her driver proceeded to Republic Bank on Water Street to cash the cheque. She said she spent some time in the bank and when her business there was completed she proceed to Jialing Motors. It was upon arrival at the location that the less than two-minute ordeal began to unfold. The woman said that as soon as she exited the taxi, someone behind her asked her something which she couldn’t recall what the question was. According to her, when she turned around she was looking into the barrel of a gun. It is believed that the taxi driver upon seeing this attempted to come to the aid of the woman and was shot in the leg. According to a female eyewitness, she only realized that something serious was happening when she heard what sounded like a ‘big truck’ slamming its door. But she quickly realized it was a gunshot.
“When I looked over I saw the guy with the gun in the air. He was tall and slim, and he wore a sky blue jersey with a short blue pants.” The woman said that one bandit carried out the robbery while a blue Toyota AT 212 car, with what turned out to be fake number plates, HB 5918, was parked close by with an accomplice. The eyewitness said that the woman struggled fiercely with the bandit, with one of the fourwheel All-Terrain Vehicles located in front of the store, leaning on her. The bystander said the men were very calm and they did not conceal their faces. (Kaieteurnews.com)