Big-ticket robberies blamed on criminal network in Kingston
Published:Thursday | April 7, 2011 | 12:00 AM
Glenroy Sinclair, Assignment Coordinator
The top brass of the Criminal Investigation Branch (CIB) believes that a Kingston-based criminal network is responsible for most of the big-ticket robberies that have taken place since January.
"There is a trend, which is suggesting that a group of persons may be behind some of these robberies," head of the CIB, Assistant Commissioner Ealan Powell, told The Gleaner yesterday afternoon.
The crime chief, who was responding to questions in relation to another major robbery which occurred yesterday, this time at the Tropical Plaza, on Constant Spring Road, St Andrew, stressed that the police now have several suspects under their microscope.
"We are focusing on one or two criminal gangs that could be involved in these robberies," argued Powell.
In yesterday's robbery, one of the senior investigators probing the incident disclosed that shortly after 11 a.m., four men and a woman, clad in ballistic vests, went to the jewellery story, posing as customers.
"They disarmed two security guards of their firearms, then held up the staff before making their escape with a large stash of jewellery," a member of the St Andrew Central CIB told The Gleaner.
Reports are that police investigators were reviewing footage from surveillance cameras in an attempt to establish the identity of the robbers.
combined take
Since January, the combined take from at least five robberies which occurred between a service station on Half-Way Tree Road and Dunrobin Avenue in St Andrew, where an armoured vehicle was held up, as well as the robbery of a jewellery store on King Street, downtown Kingston, and an incident on East Road, in which three security guards transporting $60 million were robbed by gunmen, has amounted to more than $88 million.
"Four persons have since been charged with the East Road robbery and we are looking for several others," said Powell.
The recent incidents have taken six years after former National Security Minister Dr Peter Phillips warned the society to brace for possible "big-ticket robberies" and increased attempts at extortion before crime begins to trend down.
Such developments, Phillips had explained, were likely consequences of the successful dismantling of narcotics-based criminal networks. He had suggested that the impact would have "generated a dynamic of conflict between the criminal groups ... as they seek to replace the income that has been lost".