Bandits broke into the CCS store on Camp Street some time between Sunday night and yesterday morning carting away a safe and leaving the operators bitter over the burglary, which comes months after a similar attack.
Sources close to the store said that several million dollars were taken. Up to press time the police had not issued an official statement and officials at the store declined to make any comment.
Stabroek News was told that the store, which is also an agent for Money Gram international money transfer service, was secured on Friday afternoon. However, when workers showed up for duty yesterday they discovered the back door dislodged. Further checks in the store revealed that the safe, which contained several million dollars according to a source was missing.
Upon discovering this, workers made contact with MMC security service, which provides an armed response service to the store.
Stabroek News was told that the robbers had disabled the alarm system preventing it from going off and as such MMC was not able to respond at the time of the theft.
An official at MMC said the company was only made aware of the theft yesterday morning after someone at the store reported it.
Noting that there seems to be a gang on the rampage, the MMC official said that robbers in similar fashion had disabled alarm systems they installed at other business locations during break-ins in the past.
When this newspaper visited the store yesterday MMC security guards were keeping watch outside while police officers were in the building conducting their investigation. The business was closed for the entire day yesterday and several persons who showed up to conduct money transfer transactions were turned away.
On June 1 last year four gunmen escaped with $4 million in a daring mid-morning robbery at the same store. Police had said back then that the quartet attacked Manager Annie Kumar of the Money Gram International Money Transfer outlet and took the cash.
The robbers barged into her office and, at gunpoint, ordered Kumar, other staff members and customers to lie on the floor while they removed the booty from a register and a safe and fled firing gunshots.
No one was injured. During that attack the security camera on the premises were not functioning as no tape was in it. It is not clear whether the camera was functioning on Sunday night.
