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| Police warn of robberies tied to staged accidents |
Royston Jones Jr.
Guardian Staff Reporter royston@nasguard.com
Published: Aug 20, 2012
Police yesterday warned of a trend of robberies tied to staged car accidents. The warning came several months after the United States Embassy in Nassau warned Americans of the matter. In March, the embassy warned Americans living in or traveling to New Providence that there had been reports in the local media of criminals using staged accidents to rob drivers and passengers of their possessions. Superintendent Stephen Dean said yesterday that police are issuing a similar warning to Bahamians to create more public awareness in an effort to limit potential incidents. “If someone bumps into your vehicle, I would suggest if it is late in the night that you get on the phone to the police before you get out of the vehicle to confront these persons,” he said. “We don’t advise you to so freely come out of your vehicle...because it could be a ploy to get you out of your vehicle to rob you.” Police said they had “one or two” reports of persons being robbed after being involved in minor car accidents. Dean said while there have been no further reports of incidents recently, police will employ all the preventative measures they can. Police are also working to determine if robberies in the last few weeks are connected, or being committed by different perpetrators. Dean said he believed many of them were crimes of opportunity. “Based on what we are seeing, these robberies in most cases could have been prevented, and are the result of an opportunity being presented,” he told The Nassau Guardian. “People are not being cautious enough and being lax with their surrounding. While there are a number of contributing factors, including people’s conversations, we find that people are still displaying and leaving cash in the open.” One of the most recent incidents occurred around noon on Saturday, police said. A woman told police she was sitting in her car on the corner of East Street and Quakoo Street when an armed man robbed her of an unknown amount of cash. Another victim was reportedly robbed a short while later as he was walking in the Sunlight Cottage area, off East Street. The victim said an armed man approached him and robbed him of cash, police reported. |
