Robbers attack another Belize City payroll
Famed American robber Willy Sutton, when asked by a journalist why he robbed banks, he replied “because that’s where the money is.” The same explanation would probably apply to the recent spate of hold-ups in Belize City and elsewhere, many of which have targeted company payrolls.
Ann-Marie Williams, Reporting
Yesterday the Belize Water Services was jacked of its entire payroll, today Matea Hoare, wife of contractor Roberto Hoare, literally dodged bullets to save her husband’s workers pay.
Police say around 9:40 this morning, Matea was returning from the bank with the week’s payroll along with as assistant and company driver, Mario Acosta. Acosta was just about to park his Ford F-150 in front of Hoare’s residence on Coney Drive when a dark blue four-door car pulled up beside them. Two men, both wearing masks and a gun alighted the car.
What happened next, stunned a neighbour who didn’t want to appear on camera. He said he was alerted by the sound of four shots.
Voice of Eyewitness
“When I came this side, the man foot was bleeding. He took off his shoes and it looked like he got shot.”
Ann-Marie Williams
“That’s the driver of the vehicle?”
Voice of Eyewitness
“Yeah, it seems to be the driver according to the lady. The lady told me what happened more or less. She was fighting with the people to get away the money, and she apparently saved some of it, but she risked her life, because bullets grazed her and went through the windshield, according to what I see and she explained to me.”
Ann-Marie Williams
“What did she tell you of the struggle between the robbers and herself?”
Voice of Eyewitness
“She said she struggled hard so that they can’t take all the money, but she wasn’t afraid. Apparently she was afraid after it already happened. Maybe she didn’t know that the one she was struggling with had a gun…He didn’t have a gun, but the other one seemed to have a gun and he was the one that apparently fired the shot.”
Ann-Marie Williams
“The one who had the gun also had the mask right?”
Voice of Eyewitness
“Well according to what a viewer saw around here who works in construction, they both had masks on and it was a blue car with Mexican license plates parked on the opposite of the street from the pickup that they went to rob.”
Ann-Marie Williams
“The getaway car must have followed them from the bank or so, you think?”
Voice of Eyewitness
“Well I think it had to be from the bank because the people told me they came straight from the bank because it was payroll and they can’t hang around anywhere with a lot of money like that.”
As luck would have it the jackers didn’t get away with all the money. They managed to wrestle only two thousand dollars of the fourteen thousand Matea had in the envelope.
