Save-U supermarket jacked for over $100,000

One hundred and eight thousand dollars. That’s the amount of money taken by a lone gunman this morning from Save-U Supermarket, one of Belize City’s major shopping emporiums. The jacking occurred around nine this morning as a Save-U employee, Patrick Roches, was carrying the company’s deposit bag from the store to the branch of FirstCaribbean Bank in the same San Cas Plaza–a distance of perhaps a hundred feet. As Roches, accompanied by a K.B.H. security guard, reached the bank’s A.T.M., a man described as being of dark complexion rode up on a bicycle, pointed a handgun, grabbed the bag, and rode off. Sources tell News Five that the take amounted to a whopping eighty-eight thousand dollars in cash and another twenty thousand in cheques–the proceeds from the supermarket’s sales between Friday and Monday. Not surprisingly, the initial police investigation is focussing on the likelihood of the jacking being an inside job. It is understood that Roches, an ex-police officer working at Save-U for the last two months, has been detained for questioning. Reports indicate that he had been seen talking on his cell phone just prior to the robbery.

Just last month employees of Save-U’s parent company, Santiago Castillo Limited, were robbed of their cash bag as they were making deliveries to a shop on Dolphin Street.