Veteran Sentinel Security Services Ltd employee Bert Clarke was shot dead by armed robbers in a daring heist on one of the company’s cash transport vans in Macoya, Tunapuna, early yesterday morning. Around 4.30 am yesterday, Clarke, 59, of Bregon Park, D’Abadie, and his unidentified driver were heading east along the Churchill-Roosevelt Highway when a black Ford Ranger collided with the back of their van near to the Trincity Industrial Estate.
The security van veered right before the driver managed to stop it in the middle of the highway. Police said the occupants of the pick-up truck jumped out, drew guns and began shooting at the security van. Clarke, who was in the passenger seat of the Mitsubishi panel van, was shot several times before he was able to draw his gun. His driver reportedly managed to scramble out the van and run to some nearby bush at the side of the highway, where he hid until the gunmen left.
The bandits grabbed six bags of money from the vehicle’s storage area. Police estimated the value of the haul at more than $250,000. The gunmen then switched their pick-up truck for a white SUV, which was later found abandoned along the road in Piarco. Police said both vehicles used in the heist were stolen at gunpoint between Monday and Tuesday night. Police arrived on the scene soon after the raid and cordoned off the highway between the Macoya and Orange Grove intersections.
Traffic on the eastbound lane quickly ground to a halt, with police diverting frustrated drivers to the Eastern Main Road, Priority Bus Route and other alternative routes. The traffic only returned to normal on the highway around midday when crime scene investigators finished work and Clarke’s body was removed from the vehicle by undertakers.
However, traffic snarled along several minor roads as police set up roadblocks in East and Central to find the killers. Investigators said more than 50 spent shells were found on the scene, including 5.56 shells which are only used in the high-powered assault rifles. While searching the pick-up truck, police found the robbers had filled the back seat with bags of cement. “They did that to add weight to the vehicle to stabilise it in the crash,” a police officer said.
Investigators described the suspects as “professionals” and said they believed they took weeks to plan the heist, as it was executed with “expert precision.” The Sentinel driver was interrogated by police and released. Investigators were said to be pursuing a number of leads, but no one was arrested up to last evening.
Yesterday’s robbery bore striking similarities to another one involving the company’s transport vehicle on September 25 last year. In that incident, two guards were robbed of approximately $1.2 million while driving on northbound lane of the Sir Solomon Hochoy Highway in Gasparillo. Senior Supt John Daniel, head of the Homicide Bureau, and Insp Mark Maharaj, of the Northern Division, are heading investigations.
The T&T Guardian learned yesterday that after numerous armed robberies of employees and their cash transport vehicles over the past three years, the management of Sentinel Security was warned by the police and a union for security guards to mend lapses in its operations.
Police sources said that earlier this year, executive management of the security firm held a meeting with top-ranking detectives of the Port-of-Spain CID, after there were several incidents where their guards were robbed of firearms and cash they were transporting. A source told the T&T Guardian that company officials were advised to increase security measures in their cash transport vehicles and to closely monitor their employees.
President of the Estate Police Association Edison Munroe said yesterday that his organisation had also written to the company on the issue several times. He said his organisation proposed that the two parties meet to evaluate the company’s current system, as it relates to their officers’ safety, and devise a plan to improve it. However, he said they were still awaiting a response. Refering to yesterday’s incident, Munroe said: “This is not the first time this has happened...It has been going on for years.”
He claimed his organisation was aware that some security companies were using “ancient” equipment and vehicles which caused officers to be “easy targets” for bandits. He also said officers should receive more intensive training. “They are putting officers’ lives at serious risk,” Munroe said in a telephone interview.
He said his organisation was calling on acting Police Commissioner Stephen Williams to organise a conference with his organisation, security companies and other stakeholders to develop protocols which would be adhered to by all parties. Several calls were made to Sentinel’s head office at the corner of Stone and Duke Streets in Port-of-Spain yesterday, but whenever the T&T Guardian asked to speak to an official for comment on the robberies, the person on the other end repeatedly hung up.