A major breakthrough has been made in a violent armed robbery case that unfolded on Guyana’s East Coast Demerara, with law enforcement taking one suspect into custody and seizing an unlicensed firearm just hours after the attack, the Guyana Police Force confirmed in an official statement released Saturday.
The incident, which targeted a local commercial establishment in Vryheid’s Lust, left seven people victimized, including two named individuals: a 27-year-old cashier from Mon Repos and a 28-year-old spray painter who resides in Vryheid’s Lust. The remaining five victims were customers present at the business during the robbery, and investigators have not yet been able to collect their personal details as they left the premises before authorities arrived to document the case.
According to witness accounts compiled by investigators, the two attackers approached the commercial location from the north riding a black XR motorcycle. Once they reached the site, they dismounted and entered the building, with one suspect brandishing what is believed to be a loaded firearm and the second carrying a sharp knife. The pair threatened the gathered customers with the gun, before robbing the spray painter of his mobile phone and an undisclosed amount of personal cash, then stealing a sum of business funds from the on-duty cashier.
After completing the robbery, the suspects fled the premises on their motorcycle. Local residents who witnessed the crime attempted to pursue and intercept the pair, prompting the armed suspect to fire multiple warning shots. The stray rounds struck two parked motor vehicles, causing visible damage to the property, though no additional injuries were reported in the aftermath of the shooting.
Minutes into their escape, the robbers’ getaway went awry: the pair crashed their motorcycle, sending both tumbling into a nearby roadside drainage ditch. Rather than retrieve their vehicle, the suspects abandoned the motorcycle and a haversack holding the stolen cash, fleeing the crash site on foot. Local residents secured the abandoned items and turned them over to responding officers once they arrived.
Investigators quickly launched a manhunt for the two attackers, and within two hours of the initial robbery, tracked one suspect to his residence in Plaisance, another community on the East Coast Demerara. Between 10:00 pm and 10:19 pm Friday, a search warrant was executed at the 27-year-old suspect’s home. In a search conducted with the suspect present, officers found a suspected unlicensed firearm wrapped in cloth and hidden inside a bedroom clothes basket. When questioned, the suspect confirmed he held no valid license for the weapon, and he was taken into police custody immediately.
Authorities have confirmed that the seized weapon has been logged as evidence, along with the abandoned getaway motorcycle. Two spent bullet casings recovered from the area after the shots were fired have also been secured for forensic testing, and investigators have obtained and reviewed closed-circuit camera footage from the targeted business premises to build out their full account of the robbery. The arrested suspect remains in police custody as investigators continue their probe to locate the second, still at large, accomplice.