Police probing kidnapping of Agricola office clerk

Ransom demand dropped to $10M

The police say they are investigating the reported kidnapping of office-clerk, 29 years of Evan Phillips Park, Agricola, EBD, which occurred at about 8. last night.

Police say Investigations revealed that Perreira went home by taxi and upon her arrival a black Raum motor vehicle drove up and three men exited, one of whom was armed with a handgun. “The men stuck up the taxi-driver, placing him to lie on the ground, then abducted Gail Perreira and drove away with her in their vehicle and also took away the taxi-driver’s motor vehicle”, police said.

Gail Perreira
Gail Perreira

Subsequently a phone call was received by her brother, Roger Perreira, from a man who demanded a ransom of $20 million in exchange for her safe return. Sources told Stabroek News that the ransom demand has since been reduced to $10M.

A report was made to the Ruimveldt Police Station and the taxi-driver’s vehicle was recovered by the police on the roadway in front of the West Ruimveldt Primary School.

The woman has not been located as yet, while the investigations are continuing.

Perreira works at the Delmur Shipping Company in Prashad Nagar as an admin assistant.

Her boss Desmond Sears told Stabroek News this afternoon that she left work sometime after 8 in a cab attached to a Campbellville Taxi Service which she used regularly. He said that the woman who has been working with his company for about five years was her usual self when she left and gave no indication that anything might have been troubling her. He has never heard the woman expressing any fear for her safety, he added.

Sears said that it was Perreira’s mother who called him saying that the woman was robbed and that “the vehicle left with her”.