Police look for possible motives of airport raid

 By GABRIEL LAHOC

POLICE suspect that the group of armed men who raided Nazdab airport in the early hours of Monday were after the weekend’s takings in the Air Niugini office.

Morobe provincial police commander Supt Kaiglo Ambane (pictured) said no arrests had been made yet but police were looking at two possible motives.

He said the main one was the cash collected over the weekend by Air Niugini staff. The thugs unsuccessfully tried to open the safe in the office.

He said the thugs ransacked the office and scattered Air Niugini documents hours before an internal audit was scheduled to be conducted. He said it was possible that they wanted to foil the audit.

The armed men arrived at the terminal from the runway area and by cars through the car park.

Some of the guards who were tied up said an unknown man had offered them some soft drinks before the raid. 

They believe that it was spiked to make them drowsy.

“We noticed that the drink tasted different but we drank it and we were feeling sleepy an hour later when they surrounded the terminal from both sides,” one guard said.

Ambane said the Nadzab police station was one of around 20 police stations in Morobe which were either not manned or manned by one or two constables who worked in shifts.

He said the provincial police command centre needed to be funded.