In this Kim Lucas photo, Samad Allie Parabo points to where he had his money. Robbed: Samad Allie Parabo's store that was robbed on Thursday night.

Three unmasked and armed men, under the pretext of purchasing a cassette from a West Coast Demerara music store, held up a man and his wife on Thursday night and stripped them of their gold jewellery before carting off $150,000.
Samad Allie Parabo, popularly known as 'Amo' around the village of De Willem, said the money stolen represented the proceeds of the week's sales. He had not deposited it at the bank because of the construction work being carried out in his small store.
The man said he was about to close his store - First Priority - at about 7:30 pm when a young man ran in and requested to purchase a cassette.
"Just one door was left open [when] a guy come up and say, 'Hold on, don't close. I want a cassette'," the businessman recalled yesterday when Stabroek News visited him.
At the time of the attack, his wife, Lorraine was sitting behind the counter. Parabo said he went behind the counter and sell the 'customer'. But within seconds, the young man had drawn a pistol from his pants waist and was demanding money.
At the same time, two other men, both armed with guns, ran into the store and stood on either side of the door. The first gunman immediately began stripping the couple of their gold finger rings, worth about $60,000. He next moved to the small cashier's cage to the rear of the store and snatched the money.
"He say if this is all? And one said from out there, 'Leh we go long, leh we go long. We got more wuk fo do!' and they jump in a white car with cardboard number plate and went away," the man said.
According to him, the men did not stay very long. They drove off in the direction of Parika. He said they looked "normal." One wore a white T-shirt, while the other two were dressed in shirts.
After the men left, Parabo said, he called the police and received a prompt response. According to him, the ranks arrived in three vehicles, less than eight minutes after the gunmen left. Some of them headed after the bandits' car. In recent times, victims of robberies have been complaining about the police's slow response.
The 44-year-old businessman told Stabroek News that Thursday night's attack was the fourth against him, but the first committed at the De Willem establishment.
Crime in Guyana has been on the rise since the February 23 jailbreak of five men, one of whom was found dead last Monday in a stolen motorcar. In the last five months, nine policemen, three security guards and the deputy head of a drug-busting unit, were among those murdered.
The criminal activities are concentrated on the East Coast Demerara and Georgetown, but there have been some attacks in other districts.
Two of the most bloody attacks in the West Demerara district were on June 13 and June 27.
In the first, a large band of gunmen invaded the Vergenoegen residence of the Ng-See-Quans and mortally wounded the wife of sawmiller Hilton Ng-See-Quan, before escaping in a boat with a $500,000 15-horsepower Yamaha engine belonging to Deonarine Boodwah. In the other attack, this time at Meten-Meer-Zorg, a former sugar worker, Mohamed Kayan Baksh, was shot dead when five armed men attempted to raid his home. The neighbour's house was sprayed with bullets.

Aug 29, 2002