PARAMARIBO--One man is dead following the daylight robbery of a store Sunday evening. The victim has been identified as Roche de Link, a known criminal. His fellow robbers – police suspect there were either five or six men involved – have managed to escape.
The robbery took place at the branch of Suribet lottery company on the corner of Munder and de Kwatta roads in the western outskirts of Paramaribo. Police say three men barged into the business, while two others stood guard outside in front of the business.
Inside one of the men held up the clerk and demanded that he hand him valuables, including calling cards and scratch cards the company was selling. He also grabbed her purse that contained an amount of money in foreign currency. As the men left the business, they grabbed the golden necklace off another woman who was also in the building.
They then jumped in a getaway car, but were soon being chased by police. Driving at high speed, the driver De Link slammed the getaway car into two upcoming cars. He was killed instantly.
Inside the car police found several guns and ammunition; the vehicle had been reported stolen on October 31. Its number plates belonged to another car. Police say this shows that the robbers had planned the robbery meticulously.
Four senior citizens who were sitting in one of the other vehicles involved in the accident, had to be rushed to the Academic Hospital AZ for treatment. The driver of the other vehicle drove himself to the Emergency Ward.
Police say they have no trace yet of the other men De Link had robbed the business with. They had jumped out of the mangled vehicle and run off. Two of them forced other cars that were driving by to stop, held the drivers of those cars at gunpoint and forced them to drop them at different locations in Paramaribo; one of those drivers told police that the robber who had taken him hostage, had been picked up by a woman in a white car.
Two other robbers had meanwhile stolen another vehicle that was later found abandoned in a remote part of Paramaribo. Police say they are not sure if any of the escapees had been injured during the crash they caused. They have asked the community for leads toward identifying and capturing the criminals, warning, though, that the men are probably armed and dangerous.
