Cop, rural constable admit involvement in attempted bank robbery

A police constable who has been in the Guyana Police Force (GPF) for the past three years and stationed in ‘A’ Division has confessed to being a part of last Tuesday’s attempted robbery at Republic Bank, Water Street, Georgetown.

A Rural constable who was held with him on Thursday night has also admitted to being involved in the planning and execution stage of the attempted robbery. Crime Chief, Wendell Blanhum, has confirmed that while investigating, they were pointed in the direction of the policeman and rural constable. Another bank employee was held Friday night—his name has not been released.

Kaieteur News learnt that it was the bank employee Jamal Haynes, who hijacked the car that was used in the attempted robbery.

The owner for the vehicle told the police that there were three men but he could have only identified 24-yearold Haynes.

Haynes’s accomplice, Elton Wray, an agronomist was shot dead during the attempted robbery while Keron Saunders was arrested.

It is Saunders who is providing the police with information about the incident and the persons behind the plot.

Kaieteur News understands that the three men were planning on getting their hands on the night deposits since it was a three-day weekend and companies would have deposited millions or even billions into the chute.

The robbery on the bank had been planned three months before. As customary, a female staff was supposed to be at the bank at 07:10 hours on Tuesday and should have been emptying the chute and taking the cash to the vault. According to the bandits’ plan, when they entered the bank, they would have held the staffers hostage and seized the woman who would have been emptying the chute—there they would have grabbed a few bags of cash and escaped.

Everything went according to the plan until the three bandits got into the bank and Haynes did not see his colleague who had access to the chute.

“He panicked because the woman was not around. She had not yet arrived at work, so they started checking the canister for cash. They then moved to the vault and were knocking on it to get it open,” a staffer at the financial institute said.

At 07:30, this newspaper was told that the woman, who the men wanted, was at the back entrance of the bank when she learnt of the commotion and went away. Meanwhile, Haynes’s senior colleague and junior staffers were in the vaults when they saw what was happening on camera.

They immediately called the bank’s security manager who then called the police. By this time, the Professional Guard Services (PGS) in the vicinity reached the scene in less than a minute.

There was a 10-minute shootout between the police, guard service and the men before they were held. Wray was killed.

(KAIETEUR NEWS)