The wife of one of the security guards ambushed in a daring daylight heist in Portmore, St. Catherine on Sunday is questioning whether there’s a mole inside the security operations at Beryllium Limited.
The woman’s concerns come amid allegations that the guards turned up earlier than the regular scheduled delivery time, but were still ambushed by thugs who seemingly had knowledge of the change in drop off time.
More in this report from Ricardo Brooks.
We’re calling the distraught wife Jane, in order to protect her identity. We’ve also distorted her voice.
Jane says her husband and his three colleagues would normally make their Sunday drop off at least two hours later than they turned up at the Scotiabank in Portmore.
But on Sunday March 19, those two hours were almost the difference between life and death.
Armed men sat waiting in two cars, with high powered rifles.
Reports indicate over seventy M-16 rounds and over ninety 9-millimetre bullets were fired in the fierce gun battle. The thugs made off with more than $20 million.
Jane wants to know how the gunmen knew the guards were coming earlier.
Her husband is now recovering in hospital from injuries sustained in the shootout. But she fears he’s not safe at the medical facility.
We put the question of the earlier drop off to Director of Operations at Guardsman Group, Lieutenant Commander George Overton.
The Commander acknowledged that the situation raises serious questions, but would only say it’s one of the areas which the company has been actively investigating.
He declined to comment further on the record.
But in addition to questioning the sequence of events which led to her husband being ambushed, Jane is accusing the Guardsman Group of abandoning the injured security guards.
Jane fought back tears as she contemplated how she may not have been contacted had her husband been killed.
Commander Overton told us those allegations required further checks with the company’s Welfare Department.
He gave an undertaking to check and get back to our news centre.
However, repeated efforts to reach the Commander for further comment were unsuccessful.
