Panday: Female relative masterminded Bel Air heist

Businessman Malcolm Panday this afternoon revealed in a statement to the media that a close female relative was the mastermind of Tuesday’s brazen attack at his Bel Air house during which millions of dollars were stolen.

According to the statement, the mastermind was arrested for giving out information and planning the heist along with others.

The statement, which was released just after 4 this afternoon, said that the bandits who were nabbed following a high-speed chase through Georgetown and a subsequent gunfire exchange, had received inside information to rob the couple.

The mastermind, the statement said, knew that her relatives would be present but nevertheless “still give out information for the robbers to come”. It said that she told them specifically that Ramsood would be home at that special time, “so that they will be able to go and she will be able to give them the money, since the other people in the house does not know where the money is”.

Ramsood, according to the statement, has since said that the mastermind called her half an hour before the robbery took place, talking about an unusual matter.

The statement said that while in the house the robbers put guns to the heads of four relatives including three children.

One of the children, age four, the statement added, is still traumatized by the ordeal as he wakes up fighting, shouting, screaming and trembling as if he is experiencing and imagining the robbery.

Ramsood, it said, is grieved about being deceived by the mastermind.

“Monies are not usually kept at the home, where the robbery took place, but was there on this occasion to make a payment,” the statement stressed before pointing out that the mastermind, who was one of two persons who could have known about this.