Robbery/murder of Multiplex Mall owner …  Attack was planned two months earlier – suspects confess

Two of the planners: Fazeel Bachus (Javed) and Lennox Roberts

As detectives continue to tie up loose ends in their investigations into the operations of a gang that was busted on Tuesday morning…at least two of the suspects have confessed that the attack on Regent Multiplex owner, Ganesh Ramlall, called Boyo, was hatched two months ago. The suspects, Fazeel Bacchus called Javed, and his partner, Lennox Roberts, known as Soldier Man continue to provide investigators with information they have on the Ramlall attack, implicating each other in the process. The two men who are both taxi drivers were arrested on Tuesday on the West Coast Demerara, hours after the police SWAT unit raided a Craig, East Bank Demerara apartment where a group of gang members were holed up. It did not take the two taxi drivers long to begin coughing up information on their roles in the La Jalousie, West Coast Demerara attack. Bacchus had earlier confessed to picking up the bandits and dropping them off near Ramlall’s house. Yesterday, both Bacchus and Roberts snitched on each other telling investigators that it was the other who had set up the robbery. “They were rowing about who set it up,” a police source said. According to the source, Roberts told detectives that it was Bacchus who brought up the subject about attacking Ramlall with a view to robbing him. Roberts reportedly claimed that he had initially objected to the plan, since he knew Ramlall well. “He said, ‘no, nah he, he is a good man…that de man (Ramlall) does bless up everybody when he come around’,” the source said. Nevertheless, the plan went through and according to detectives, Roberts eventually went along with it, playing the role of lookout at the bar-b-que that Ramlall had attended hours before he went home to his death. He also accompanied Bacchus to pick up the gunmen after the killing of the businessman. The source said that while Bacchus and Roberts have not provided them with the names of the bandits they transported, they gave some details of the plan to attack Ramlall. “After they came up with the plan, they had to get people to execute it. So they contacted Sadam (Rolston Morrison) who was killed on Tuesday and his crew,” the source told this newspaper.

Regent Multiplex owner, Ganesh Ramlall ‘Boyo’ who was shot dead during the robbery

The plan was not to kill but to rob and if they did not get enough money from Ramlall, they were to kidnap him and demand a hefty ransom. “They were to tie him up in the house and relieve him of everything,” the source said. The two men told investigators that hours before the attack, they had Ramlall’s place checked out, making sure that they know how to pounce on the businessman when he came home. Bacchus told detectives that after dropping off the bandits near Ramlall’s house, they went back to the bar-b-que where they had left the businessman earlier that night. Ramlall subsequently left and headed home. Meanwhile, back at Ramlall’s house the bandits who were waiting there saw when he arrived and parked his car on the bridge and went inside his house. They did not get anxious when Ramlall went into his house since they were aware that he would have to come back out to park his car in his yard. When Ramlall eventually came back outside, the bandits pounced on him. They did not have it easy with the businessman who put up a fierce fight, while raising an alarm. The bandits then pumped bullets into the businessman before hurriedly fleeing with his expensive chain and wrist band as neighbours began responding by discharging their firearm. By this time both Bacchus and Roberts had arrived at the scene in a car which the bandits boarded and made good their escape. They drove along the Railway Line and emerged on the Crane Public Road, losing the car’s rear bumper in the process. However, their plans unraveled after painstaking investigations by the police, aided by public spirited persons led to their arrests. Police investigations have also led to the recovery of wristwatches from one of the taxi drivers who claimed that he had bought them.

Five of the ten captured in Craig safe house after the shootout with police that left wanted man Rolston Morrison ‘Sadam’ dead and Warren critical at the GPHC

Meanwhile, detectives yesterday detained an employee of the Regional Democratic Council, Region Three. The man whose name was given as Marcelo Caldiera was implicated by Bacchus. Bacchus said that after the Ramlall incident, Caldiera was sent to his house to threaten him, warning that harm would come to him if he did not keep his mouth shut. The man was arrested at his office in the Region Three compound. Another taxi driver was also arrested after it was learnt that he had taken Roberts and one of the bandits to Bacchus’s home to threaten him also. The police source said that although Bacchus was the main organiser, he was definitely the weak link in the entire scheme. Kaieteur News understands that the Ramlall robbery/murder was not the first time that Bacchus had organized such activity. He was fingered in the robbery committed on one of his family members as well as other armed robberies on West Coast Demerara. On Tuesday acting on information provided, the police SWAT unit raided a house at Craig, East Bank Demerara where they arrested several persons including the alleged shooter of Ramlall. Some of the suspects arrested were also part of the gang that raided the home of Land Court Judge Nicola Pierre and her husband Mohamed Chand at felicity, on the East Coast of Demerara. Chand has since lost an eye while Pierre is nursing a broken which resulted from a savage beating at the hands of the criminals.