$300m Heists

Multiple criminal gangs across Jamaica have forged an “alliance” to target money courier entities, and have reportedly escaped with over $300 million during a recent spate of brazen daytime heists, since last year, police investigators have revealed.

Well-placed security insiders said a pact to have organised attacks on couriers was brokered by the incarcerated leaders of several violent gangs operating in Kingston, St Andrew, St Catherine, Manchester and Westmoreland. Investigators declined to name the gangs.

In one of the heists, which was caught on camera, a Beryllium money courier vehicle was attacked in broad daylight outside the Mandeville, Manchester branch of Scotiabank last August. Heavily-armed thugs reportedly made off with a bag stacked with more than $80 million, one investigator disclosed.

The gangsters have also targeted automated teller machines (ATMs). Approximately $26 million was taken from a National Commercial Bank ATM, which was stolen in Longville Park, Clarendon, in July this year, according to the investigator, who did not want to be named because he is not authorised to speak publicly about the probe.

As part of the pact, the robberies are carried out by different gangs – historical rivals in some cases – utilising shared resources such as personnel and weapons, the investigator explained during an interview with The Sunday Gleaner.

“You have the masterminds who may not be responsible for every robbery, but they work together. So let’s say today is my project and tomorrow is your project, I give you support and you give me support,” the investigator explained.

They are all linked

“Essentially, someone does the recruiting and then there are people in prison who actually assist with the process. It’s the same group of people working together, they are all linked.”

Deputy Commissioner of Police Fitz Bailey, who heads the Criminal Investigation Branch, declined comment for this report, citing the ongoing investigation into the spate of robberies involving money couriers.

He did say, however, that “most” of the top gangsters are incarcerated, and suggested that various alliances between criminal gangs are being forged behind prison walls.

“People repeatedly go in and out so they form alliances. These are some of the things that we have to contend with,” he said.

Meanwhile, Commander George Overton, chairman of the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica’s standing committee on national security and justice, confirmed that the police have shared intelligence with private security companies about the alliance between the gangs.

The “cooperation and collaboration” between the police and private security sector began last year following the spate of robberies targeting Beryllium money courier teams, said Overton, who is also the immediate past president of the Jamaica Society for Industrial Security.

“We have set up information sharing so that if the armoured [money courier] vehicles … were going into particular areas or moving significantly large sums of cash, they would inform the police so that they could be in the area as well as get them intelligence on what is happening in the area,” he explained.

He declined to discuss measures put in place by private security companies.

Overton disclosed that private security firms were given “certain restricted approvals” by the government following discussions, but said an arms embargo imposed by the United States government in April this year against Jamaica and 39 other countries has prevented them from “importing new weapons of the type that has been approved”.

The police and executives at Beryllium believe yet another heist was thwarted on Friday when four heavily-armed thugs were killed in a fierce gunfight with cops in Negril, Westmoreland. A man, believed to be an accomplice, was hospitalised with gunshot wounds.

Suspected mastermind

The names of the slain men were not released up to late yesterday, but the investigation has so far revealed that three of them reside in St Catherine, Manchester and Westmoreland. Five people, including the suspected mastermind, were also apprehended in connection with Friday’s planned attack on a Beryllium money courier vehicle in the resort town, police sources told The Sunday Gleaner yesterday.

“We have somebody in custody who we believe is high up in the [command] chain not only in relation to the current incident, but previous robberies,” one police source disclosed.

Six guns – two M-16 rifles; an AK-47 rifle; two 9mm pistols; and a .38 pistol – and over 120 rounds of ammunition were also seized.

An undetermined number of accomplices also escaped, said one investigator, careful not to divulge too much details about the case.

“The police have footprints all over the place so we are way above the criminals no matter how good they think they are,” said the veteran detective.

Andre McLean, president of Beryllium, lauded the police Counter Terrorism and Organised Crime Branch which led Friday’s “successful” operation.

“The company acknowledges the dedicated and unwavering support that Beryllium has received behind the scenes from the Jamaica Constabulary Force ever since the major incidents that affected the company, the financial sector and the country in recent times,” McLean said in a statement.

livern.barrett@gleanerjm.com