Police warn of armed holdups

National

By JACKLYN SIRIAS
Police in Port Moresby has urged shop owners and other business people in the city to be on high security alert.
Similar warnings came from Lae police last week.
National Capital District Metropolitan Superintendent Benjamin Turi’s caution comes after a series of armed holdups by gangs and at least one death over the last week.
In the past six weeks, there have been at least six holdups in shops in the Waigani-Gordon area.
A chain supermarket staff was shot at 4-Mile last Wednesday and armed holdups occurred at Badili and Waigani last Saturday.
The supermarket staff died.
“Criminals these days do not dress in rags anymore,”  Turi said.
“They usually dress like lawyers, like accountants or even police officers.”
Turi said they even mixed around with crowds and customers or clients of businesses and would be hard to identify  immediately.
Turi said most of the robberies that occurred recently, happened around closing hours.
Lae is also experiencing an upsurge of armed holdups and shootings as Christmas draws closer.
Turi urged security guards to keep “a very close watch on the people moving in and out of business centres”.
“If you are a security, you must sit down and watch carefully who comes in and goes out,” he said.
He said these days, gangs carried money to bribe police officers to be set free when they are caught.
Turi said he was monitoring policemen in the city.
“I have been around for quite some time now in Port Moresby and I know every police officer in the city,” he said.
He said if any of them was involved in such crimes, it would not be hard to identify them and deal with them.
He said a number of such officers who were involved in criminal activities were dealt with.