A San Fer­nan­do man on his way to pay over $100,000 worth of out­stand­ing tax­es on gam­ing ma­chines on Mon­day was robbed of the cash, steps away from the In­land Rev­enue Build­ing in Port-of-Spain.

The dar­ing mid­day rob­bery re­port­ed­ly took place in full view of the se­cu­ri­ty guards on du­ty.

Po­lice said the 33-year-old vic­tim was ap­proach­ing the steps lead­ing to the Min­istry of Fi­nance of­fice at Wright­son Road, around 12.20 pm, when a sus­pect grabbed the shop­ping bag con­tain­ing the sum of $120,000 and ran off.

The vic­tim re­port­ed­ly chased af­ter the sus­pect, who was of African de­scent and had been dressed in a white t-shirt with an or­ange re­flec­tive con­struc­tion vest.

The sus­pect al­leged­ly jumped in­to a wait­ing sil­ver B15 car, which sped off as the vic­tim gave chase.

The vic­tim al­leged­ly backed off when he saw the dri­ver of the wait­ing ve­hi­cle reach­ing for some­thing and, be­liev­ing his life to be in dan­ger, stood back as the car dis­ap­peared. —An­na-Lisa Paul