Po­lice in­ves­ti­gat­ing last year's $17 mil­lion heist of cash in tran­sit from a couri­er say they are stumped for leads and are now seek­ing to flush out the crim­i­nals with a mil­lion-dol­lar re­ward.The re­ward, the largest ever of­fered by Crime Stop­pers, has been pub­lished in all three dai­ly news­pa­pers over the last few days but has not drawn any use­ful in­for­ma­tion, in­ves­ti­ga­tors said.

Po­lice be­lieve the mil­i­tary-style strike on the pan­el van car­ry­ing the loot, an ac­cu­mu­la­tion of mon­ey in­tend­ed to re­plen­ish all the com­mer­cial banks in To­ba­go, was car­ried out by high­ly-trained pro­fes­sion­als.The rob­bery was the largest in T&T's his­to­ry.Vet­er­an se­cu­ri­ty guard Supt Bert Clarke, 59, was killed af­ter the se­cu­ri­ty van was rammed from be­hind by the rob­bers. The dri­ver man­aged to es­cape and was de­tained by po­lice for sev­er­al days be­fore be­ing re­leased.

The Ford Ranger used by the ban­dits to ram the se­cu­ri­ty van was loaded with bags of ce­ment in the rear seat to sta­bilise it dur­ing the col­li­sion.Po­lice re­cov­ered cas­ings from three types of weapons which were used to fire on the se­cu­ri­ty van, 7.56 mm, 9 mm and shot­gun car­tridges.Ac­cord­ing to the ad­ver­tise­ment of­fer­ing the re­ward, at around 4.30 am on No­vem­ber 28, the Sen­tinel Se­cu­ri­ty ve­hi­cle was head­ing east along the Churchill-Roo­sevelt High­way, near Trinci­ty In­dus­tri­al Es­tate, when it was struck from be­hind by the Ranger.

Two men emerged from the pick-up truck and opened fire on the pan­el van, killing Clarke. They es­caped in a white Kia Soren­to with the cash, which al­so in­clud­ed US$150,000.Crime Stop­pers is of­fer­ing the re­ward for in­for­ma­tion lead­ing to the ar­rest or con­vic­tion of the peo­ple re­spon­si­ble for the mur­der and rob­bery.Any­one with in­for­ma­tion should call the con­fi­den­tial 24-hour call cen­tre at 800-8477 or sub­mit a tip on­line at www.crimestop­per­stt.com.

The ad­ver­tise­ment claimed that all calls would be anony­mous and those col­lect­ing cash have al­ways re­mained anony­mous.When con­tact­ed, head of Crime Stop­pers Se­nior Supt Wayne Boyd did not wish to com­ment.How­ev­er, in­ves­ti­ga­tors said Crime Stop­pers, which is an in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tion, makes in­quiries in­to any re­ports that are made and urges mem­bers of the pub­lic to con­tact 800-TIPS if they have in­for­ma­tion.

Com­ment­ing on the de­vel­op­ment, Lar­ry Nath, pres­i­dent of the Bankers As­so­ci­a­tion, said: "It is un­for­tu­nate, as it re­sult­ed in a loss of life, and I think it is a tragedy. "Sec­ond­ly, the as­so­ci­a­tion is work­ing with au­thor­i­ties in look­ing to solve the mat­ter and re­cov­er the funds."

He said banks were now re­think­ing their strat­e­gy on se­cu­ri­ty arrange­ments.Nath did not com­ment on the re­ward.

In­sp Mark Maraj is con­tin­u­ing the rob­bery in­ves­ti­ga­tion, while a sep­a­rate team from the Homi­cide Bu­reau is in­ves­ti­gat­ing Clarke's killing.–with re­port­ing by Camille Clarke