BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – A Guyanese national was charged with the Friday, June 11, 2010 payroll robbery at Port Zante and has been remanded to prison awaiting trial.
Police reported that Leon Cutting (27) of Horsfords Road, Basseterre was formally arrested and charged on Monday, June 21 for robbing fellow Guyanese Lacram Persaud of John England Village, St. Peters of an undisclosed sum of money.
“Cutting was remanded in custody at Her Majesty’s Prison on Tuesday, June 22, 2010 and is presently awaiting a date for a Preliminary Inquiry. Investigations into this matter are still ongoing,” said Police Press and Public Relations Officer Inspector Vaughan Henderson.
At about 2:30 p.m. on Friday, June 11, two unidentified men staged a daring holdup at a construction site at Port Zante, during which a Guyanese supervisor, Reuel Chattergoon, was shot in the left leg. He was taken to the JNF Hospital, where he was a patient for two days.
SKNVibes learnt that the bullet had entered the front of his thigh and exited below the rear of his knee. No severe damage was caused and he is currently back at work.
On condition of anonymity, a young man, who was carrying a bag that contained the payroll, said that he and another man went to the bank to uplift the money, and on arrival at the construction site they observed two strange men in the building and decided to return to their parked vehicle to envelope the employees’ salaries.
“When we arrived at Port Zante, we parked the car and headed for a room at the construction site to pay the workers. However, as we entered the building, we saw two strangers with two employees and a former employee in there. So we decided to return to the car and envelope the money.
“While in the car, a man came to the opened window and placed a gun to my neck and snatched the bag with the money. I was scared…everything happened so fast. The foreman immediately ran behind the gunman to retrieve the money. Suddenly, I heard the sound of a gun being fired, and on checking I realised that Chattergoon was shot,” the robbery victim said.
One of the employees said that shortly before the robbery he had entered the building and was confronted by two men, one of whom was armed with a gun.
“I was on lunch break, and when I entered the building I saw a co-worker was sitting in a corner and two other men were there with him. I don’t the men, but I thought they were visiting one of the employees of the company.
“One of the two strangers came up to me, exposed a gun and told me to sit down. I complied and he said, ‘You don’t have to fraid nothing…nobody gon do you anything.’ Shortly after a former employee entered the building and the two strangers told us to go into the storeroom and remain silent. The two men took the padlock and key and closed the door, but they did not lock it. I sensed that something was amiss, knowing that Friday is payday, but I did not know they would have shot the foreman. I guess it was a setup,” the employee explained.
Yesterday (Jun. 24), this media house visited the construction site and was informed that in addition to the payroll, the two employees in the building were robbed of their jewellery, cash and a cellular phone.
SKNVibes also learnt that the former employee in the building was Leon Cutting.
“When the robbers put us in the room, Cutting was there with us…but the door was not locked. I suspected that the two men had come to rob us of the payroll, but I didn’t believe Cutting was in league with them until I saw him open the door and was talking to one of them. On seeing that, I immediately concluded that he had set up the robbery because he had known about our system of payment on Fridays,” another employee said on condition of anonymity.
This media house also learnt that after the two robbers escaped, a group of employees locked the doors of the building while Cutting was inside and severely beat him with a hammer and concrete blocks. He was however rescued by members of the Strike Force.
