An­na-Lisa Paul

Hours af­ter eight men broke in­to Web Source on Mon­day night and cut their way in­to the main of­fice and ware­house us­ing blow torch­es and bolt cut­ters, CEO Lin­coln Ma­haraj apol­o­gised to cus­tomers whose items were stolen and promised to set­tle claims with­in 72 to 96 hours.

He said on Tues­day that it was a sad day for his busi­ness. He de­scribed the well-planned and ex­e­cut­ed rob­bery, which last­ed for close to two hours, as an es­ca­la­tion of the so­phis­ti­cat­ed crimes tak­ing place across T&T.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, he said ini­tial in­for­ma­tion that two of their couri­er trucks had been stolen from the com­pound had not both­ered him much.

How­ev­er, up­on ar­riv­ing at the Trinci­ty com­pound around 4.30 am on Mon­day, Ma­haraj said, “I was com­fort­able know­ing if it was just two vans, but when I got here, my worst fears were re­alised cause I didn’t think that they could have got­ten in­to the build­ing.”

He said the “sur­gi­cal” pre­ci­sion with which the ban­dits op­er­at­ed caused him to look at the sit­u­a­tion in an en­tire­ly dif­fer­ent light.

“They used a blow torch and cut­ting in­stru­ment to get through the met­al shut­ter, which is a whole dif­fer­ent sce­nario. They moved from pig-foot and crow­bar to cut­ting torch­es. That shook me,” he said.

While Ma­haraj did not re­lease any de­tails of the ac­tu­al rob­bery, which was cap­tured on CCTV cam­eras in­stalled in­side the ware­house, it is be­lieved the men walked through the build­ing and care­ful­ly se­lect­ed the items they want­ed.

Video footage show­ing just how four of the sus­pects en­tered the com­pound via the east­ern fence was re­leased. In it, the men were seen walk­ing along the perime­ter of the com­pound car­ry­ing one item each, in­clud­ing an oxy­gen tank; a 20-pound gas cylin­der; a blow torch and a bolt cut­ter.

The men then sliced through the right bot­tom of the met­al shut­ter of the main of­fice, fol­low­ing which they crawled in and dis­abled the lock­ing mech­a­nism.

Un­con­firmed claims were that the men then re­trieved the keys to two of the couri­er vans which they used to load the stolen items in­to.

On the op­po­site side of the com­pound, where the ware­house is lo­cat­ed, the ban­dits gained en­try by cut­ting a hole in the ware­house shut­ter, fol­low­ing which they loaded the items in­to the vans.

The 51-year-old se­cu­ri­ty guard on du­ty was tied up and left in the booth at the front of the com­pound for the du­ra­tion of the rob­bery.

De­scrip­tions and the val­ue of the stolen items was not re­leased, as that in­for­ma­tion was still be­ing com­piled up to late yes­ter­day.

Al­though Web Source tem­porar­i­ly halt­ed op­er­a­tions fol­low­ing the rob­bery, Ma­haraj said a full au­dit of the loss­es will take place over the next two days.

How­ev­er, it is be­lieved that a 75-inch tele­vi­sion was among the items stolen.

Al­though he has been a vic­tim of crime sev­er­al times be­fore, Ma­haraj be­lieved the pre­vi­ous se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures he had in place were suf­fi­cient.

Pri­or to speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, Ma­haraj said they had al­ready met with se­cu­ri­ty con­sul­tants with a view to in­creas­ing se­cu­ri­ty.

“We are hop­ing this does not hap­pen again,” he said.

Ques­tioned about the pos­si­bil­i­ty that one or more of his em­ploy­ees could have been work­ing with the ban­dits to car­ry out the co­or­di­nat­ed op­er­a­tion, Ma­haraj said, “It is too ear­ly to say.”

Asked what con­cerns his coun­ter­parts in the couri­er in­dus­try had ex­pressed fol­low­ing the rob­bery, he ad­vised them to be even more vig­i­lant and with the Christ­mas hol­i­day just over one month away, he urged, “The sea­son is up­on us where crime in­creas­es and we are no ex­cep­tion to the rule.”

He said there will be height­ened se­cu­ri­ty pro­to­cols com­ing but his cus­tomers that tt should not im­pact them.

“We will try to keep it in­vis­i­ble and as seam­less as pos­si­ble to them, but in the long term, we do not ever want some­thing like to hap­pen again be­cause this is not how we do busi­ness.”

To af­fect­ed cus­tomers, he of­fered a sin­cere, “We are sor­ry.”

He al­so as­sured af­fect­ed cus­tomers that they would be con­tact­ed both via email and tele­phone in terms of re­im­burs­ing them, he con­tin­ued, “We want to give them that as­sur­ance that while we may fal­ter, we are not go­ing to stay down.”

One of the stolen ve­hi­cles was lo­cat­ed in Laven­tille on Tues­day.

Cham­ber: Its just the

start­ing point

Ex­press­ing con­cern about the rob­bery, which he claimed was just the start­ing point, Greater Tu­na­puna Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce pres­i­dent Ra­mon Gre­go­rio warned, “Ob­vi­ous­ly, we may see more of this brazen ac­tiv­i­ty.”

Reaf­firm­ing their sup­port for law en­force­ment as they work to stem the flow of this kind of ac­tiv­i­ty, he said, “It is some­thing that re­quires us all to work to­geth­er. If you see some­thing, we have to com­mu­ni­cate and re­port, ir­re­spec­tive of our con­cern be­cause at the end of the day, crime is be­ing com­mit­ted and if we don’t have per­sons who com­mit to shar­ing in­for­ma­tion, we would al­ways be in this sce­nario where no­body knows any­thing or says any­thing.”

To mem­bers, he al­so urged, “Con­tin­ue to be vig­i­lant. Con­tin­ue to dou­ble-look and triple-look af­ter your premis­es, busi­ness and em­ploy­ees.”

He added, “There is no for­mu­la. Crime can hap­pen to any of us. Put sys­tems in place to en­sure that at least, if a crime does hap­pen, you can help to iden­ti­fy the per­pe­tra­tors and work with law en­force­ment.”