(Trinidad Express) Twenty people were held up and robbed by three gunmen who stormed the St Vincent Street, Port of Spain, branch of Island Finance on Thursday afternoon.
Sixteen of the victims were employees while the remaining four were customers, police said.
According to police, shortly after noon, three gunmen entered the business place at Upper St Vincent Street and announced a hold-up.
They ordered the employees and customers to lie on the floor and robbed them of cash, cellphones, jewelry and other personal items.
The men also stole a large undisclosed sum of money from the cash registers before making their escape in a waiting vehicle.
A report was made to the police and officers of the Inter Agency task Force responded to the incident. No one was able to give a description of the getaway vehicle.
Police said they had earlier received information that several people were on their way to rob the San Fernando branch of Island Finance and the business place was put under surveillance.
This, however, didn’t happen as the bandits struck at the St Vincent Street branch, carting off a large undisclosed sum of cash.
They believe the information they had earlier received was spread as a decoy.
Investigators are expected to view several surveillance tapes which recorded the incident in an attempt to identity the robbers.
Detective Phillip of the Port of Spain CID is probing the incident.
