By SANCHESKA BROWN
Tribune Staff Reporter
sbrown@tribunemedia.net
POLICE arrested two more Atlantis employees yesterday in connection with the botched robbery of the casino’s cash cage on Sunday afternoon.
Although no money was actually stolen, police say they recovered a little over $100,000 in cash from two duffle bags in the ceiling of the cage.
Assistant Commissioner of Police, Anthony Ferguson said the men are assisting police in their investigations and could be charged as early as today.
“We are still investigating this incident as this time we do not think that anyone else in involved and we are not looking for anyone else,” he said.
“We took two additional persons into custody, two males who are current employees. Of the three that were arrested Sunday afternoon, two were current employees and one was a former employee. We are satisfied with the way the investigation is going and hope to wrap it up real soon.”
Three men, aged 24, 30 and 31, all reportedly Bahamian, were arrested following the daring daylight robbery.
The raid started when three men entered the casino’s main cashier’s cage in the basement at Coral Towers around noon on Sunday.
The bandits sprayed pepper spray or tear gas into the air forcing the cage workers to run for safety. The suspects then collected some money, climbed up to the ceiling and put the money into two bags which they had hidden there.
One suspect was caught in the cage and the others were nabbed in the corridor attempting to flee.
All the men were caught by Atlantis security who detained them until the police arrived.
Resort officials said the robbery attempt was not visible to casino patrons. It occurred in an employee-only area behind the kiosks where people collect winnings.
Sixteen Atlantis workers were taken to hospital for treatment.
Sources said the men allegedly worked in surveillance and other departments of the Atlantis resort. A worker, who claimed that two of the men were current employees, told The Tribune that the men, not to attract attention, had dressed in the dark blue jump suits of the engineering department.
They were allegedly also working with another man who rented a room in Coral Towers to stake out the surroundings.
The employee said that one of the men was in the roof screwing out the screws in the top of the cashier’s cage so that he could jump down into it, while another stayed in the casino to give the signal and distract attention from the cage.
Something was sprayed from a canister – “either pepper spray or tear gas” – it got into the air vents, and “people were coughing and sneezing and some even passed out. Four ambulances were here to take them to hospital,” said the employee.
He said when the would-be robber in the ceiling jumped down into the cage, where the cashier had been counting the money, she too was coughing and sneezing, but was able to press the panic button, which sounded the alarm, and shut down the casino. Police quickly surrounded the casino, preventing anyone from entering or leaving. The bridges were quickly closed.
Kerzner International executive George Markantonis said security teams “did an outstanding job in apprehending the perpetrators.”
No one was seriously hurt during the attempted robbery.
Comments
John 11 years, 7 months ago
It is amazing that everytime something like this happens they cry goes out, "what is this going to do to our number one industry tourism". But if we want to use a yardstick and measure what was more damaging: was it the actual robbery at atlantis or the screaming headlines, especially in the electronic and print media? Altantis is not unique to casino heists, and if you check with management, a vary large amount of any casino's budget goes for security and survallience. Many casinos in Las Vegas and other parts of the USA were targets of con men and scam artists, some who milked these operations out of millions over a period of years before they were caught. Some of the robbers were also current or former employees of the casinos they robbed. In the case of Atlantis the security system worked. The culprits were caught red handed and fortunately no one was seriously injured. And like most people who rob casinos in the US are Amreicans or , at least residents, the culprits who tried to pull off the heist at Atlantis are Bahamian. Young, amature, daring, but can you call them career or hardened criminals? Hardly unless you have other information about them. Gold glitters for a reason and when its in someone else's hands it seems to glitter even more..least we be tempted to throw our lives away
Sign in to comment
Or login with:
OpenID