Po­lice have charged four men with rob­bery with vi­o­lence and pos­ses­sion of a firearm and am­mu­ni­tion against two Chi­nese na­tion­als.

The Po­lice Ser­vice said in a re­lease yes­ter­day that the men were charged af­ter be­ing ar­rest­ed by of­fi­cers of the Rio Claro Crim­i­nal In­ves­ti­ga­tions De­part­ment (CID) dur­ing an an­ti-crime ex­er­cise in the dis­trict.

Eliot Hamil­ton, 27, a se­cu­ri­ty guard of La­m­onte Street, Long­denville; Odell Pri­eto, 19, a labour­er of Sand Hill Road, Tabaquite; Keron Mar­tin, 25, a labour­er of Lon­don Street, Long­denville; and Omar Alex­is, 18, of no fixed place of abode, were al­so joint­ly charged with as­sault with in­tent to rob, fol­low­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to an in­ci­dent which oc­curred on Sep­tem­ber 9.

The state­ment said the in­ci­dent is al­leged to have oc­curred around 7.15 pm when the two vic­tims, one a pro­pri­etor of a bar along Na­pari­ma Ma­yaro Road, Rio Claro, were prepar­ing to se­cure the premis­es.

The vic­tims were ap­proached by two men, one armed with a gun and the oth­er with a knife, who said it was a rob­bery.

One of the vic­tims was dealt sev­er­al blows about the body and re­lieved of a quan­ti­ty of cash and al­co­holic drinks val­ued at $800, be­fore the sus­pects es­caped in a white Nis­san Ti­i­da.

The ve­hi­cle was in­ter­cept­ed around 3 am the fol­low­ing day along Cu­napo Road Junc­tion, Tabaquite Road, Rio Claro, by of­fi­cers of the Rio Claro CID, with the as­sis­tance of the Crime Pa­trol Unit and East­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force of­fi­cers.

A search of the ve­hi­cle was con­duct­ed and re­sult­ed in of­fi­cers dis­cov­er­ing the stolen cash, drinks and a pis­tol loaded with nine rounds of 9 mm am­mu­ni­tion.

All four were ar­rest­ed. The charges were laid by WPC Tham­pa Sookoo, of the Rio Claro CID and PC Shel­don Suther­land, al­so of the Rio Claro CID.

Two of the ac­cused— Hamil­ton and Pri­eto were charged in con­nec­tion with the rob­bery and as­sault of a cou­ple on Sat­ur­day Ju­ly 14, 2018, in the Rio Claro dis­trict.

The ac­cused were con­veyed to the Ch­agua­nas Po­lice Sta­tion, pend­ing fur­ther en­quiries in­to oth­er rob­bery, shoot­ing and firearm re­lat­ed of­fences in the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion.