Brazen Home Invasion Nets $100,000
A pair of thieves netted over ninety thousand dollars during a home invasion in Belize City on Monday afternoon. Seventy-five-year-old Maria Sylvester, the Patroness of HelpAge Belize, reported to police that she was sitting inside her living room at her residence near the corners of A Street and Princess Margaret Drive. While conversing with her daughter and son-in-law, two men entered the home brandishing a firearm. The men ordered them on the floor and proceeded to rob them of an assortment of jewelry before relieving them of twenty thousand dollars in U.S. currency. All told, the men described as Hispanic and dark-skinned made off with ninety-six thousand dollars in cash, jewelry and phones.
ASP Alejandro Cowo, Officer Commanding CIB
“On Monday, the twenty-fifth of July, 2016 sometime after 2:45 p.m., CIB police from Precinct Three responded to a burglary report in the Princess Margaret Drive area. As a result, upon arrival at the said location which is a two storey house, police visited the upstairs of the residence where they were informed that the occupants of the house at the time, which were four persons—one male person and three females—were apparently held up at gunpoint by two male persons; a male person of Hispanic descent and another person of fair or dark-skinned complexion. As a result, the occupants of the house were tied up and ordered to lay on the floor. Thereafter, the house was ransacked where an amount of jewelries and cash were stolen from inside the house. As the two persons were leaving the house, they met the caretaker going up and he was held up at gunpoint likewise, however, nothing was stolen from him and another coworker. The two male persons ran down Princess Margaret Drive and made good their escape with an assorted amount of jewelries and cash.”
Reporter
“Just looking at the significant amount of cash, is there any indication if these robbers had any expectation that there was cash in the house? Did they have inside knowledge of the property?”
Alejandro Cowo
ASP Alejandro Cowo
“Well so far, what the investigation is showing, to us it might look like yes, they had some knowledge of what was inside the house. Hence the reason that we have brought several persons that were at the house and we are interviewing them at this moment. Also likewise, yesterday after the report, police did a follow up and they found one of the cell phones that was stolen by the Marion Jones Complex on St. Mathews Street. One of the cell phones was found in that area, by the Marion Jones Complex.”
Reporter
“Okay, now sir, it says one dark complexion person and one clear skin person. Were the persons in the house able to describe the ethnicity of these people?”
ASP Alejandro Cowo
“Yes, that’s why we had given you the description of them at this time and likewise we checked in the area and that is the information that we get from other person that we have interviewed so far.”
Reporter
“Now, how concern is this to you all that they are targeting the residence of apparently an affluent and long standing residents of King’s Park—I think they have been living there since the early eighties—and it is a home that was targeted in broad daylight, a home that also had an employee in the yard, a caretaker of some type. Is this a concern for you all that the criminals were so brazen?”
ASP Alejandro Cowo
“Every crime is of concern to the police.”
