SHANE SU­PERVILLE

Se­nior Re­porter

East­ern Di­vi­sion po­lice ar­rest­ed three men min­utes af­ter they robbed a de­liv­ery­man and load­ers trav­el­ling through To­co on Fri­day af­ter­noon.

Po­lice said the work­ers were trav­el­ling in the com­pa­ny's truck on the To­co Main Road, Lan­gus­ta Trace, at 1 pm when they no­ticed two gun­men wear­ing cam­ou­flage cloth­ing and ski masks stand­ing in the mid­dle of the road.

The de­liv­ery­man pulled over as one of the ban­dits ap­proached the dri­ver's side door and or­dered him to switch off the truck. The ban­dit then or­dered the de­liv­ery­man and load­ers to lie on the road, while the sec­ond ban­dit at­tempt­ed to open a vault in the truck us­ing a belt grinder. He failed in the at­tempt.

The ban­dits stole $350 from the de­liv­ery­man be­fore flee­ing.

The work­ers called the po­lice, and of­fi­cers from the Matu­ra Po­lice Sta­tion, To­co Po­lice Sta­tion, the CID, and the East­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force launched an op­er­a­tion. Short­ly af­ter­ward, they in­ter­cept­ed a white Toy­ota Hilux near the 16 3/4 mile mark on To­co Main Road, Ba­lan­dra.

The of­fi­cers searched the ve­hi­cle and found an AR-15 ri­fle with 40 rounds of 5.56 am­mu­ni­tion and a pis­tol with 35 rounds of 9-mil­lime­tre am­mu­ni­tion. They al­so seized cam­ou­flage cloth­ing and a grinder.

The three men, aged 41, 23, and 21, were ar­rest­ed and are ex­pect­ed to be in­ter­viewed.