Armed robbers hit restaurant in Maya Beach

The nationwide weekend crime wave also washed over the south. On Saturday night around 10:00, two armed masked men held up a restaurant in the resort community of Maya Beach on the Placencia peninsula. Christine Duffy, the proprietor of Mangoes, told News Five that the pair, one armed with a knife and the other wielding what appeared to be a machine gun, walked up to her bar and threw her to the ground. An employee and customer were also held at knife and gunpoint. The robbers took approximately three hundred dollars from the cash register and fled towards the beach. It is believed they later headed south as about a quarter mile in the direction of Seine Bight a mask and shirts worn by the men were found on the roadside, along with a sales slip from the cash register. It is understood that police have a lead in the case and are in pursuit of at least one suspect from the area. The Placencia peninsula is the nation’s fastest growing tourism centre, but the area’s major villages, Placencia and Seine Bight, have only two policemen each and no vehicles. A commitment by the previous government to construct a police station at the junction of the Southern Highway and Placencia road has never been acted upon by either administration.