Stunned owner identifies items

A San Juan businessman who does wholesale business with household items such as stoves, regrigerators freezers, and microwaves recei-ved a shock yesterday, when he was called to the Chaguanas Police Station and shown a truck filled with items valued over $500,000 which were stolen from his warehouse. Vijay Lutchman, the owner of the warehouse, expressed surprise that the police were able to recover the stolen items before it was ever reported stolen or missing.

Lutchman expressed relief that his items were recovered and heaped praise on officers of Central Division for their surveillance work and intelligence gathering, which led to the recovery of the items and the arrest of 15 persons, including five women and seven men. Lutchman said he was not even aware that the items were stolen. He later produced documents to identify the items seized by the police. All the suspects were handed over to officers of the Barataria Police Station. Reports revealed that early yesterday, a party of officers led by Ag Sgt Ajith Persad, and including PCs Ramsook, Dhanai, Sinanan, Narcis, Williams and others raided homes in Warrenville, Cunupia, Caparo, Beju-cal, Macoya, Curepe and Tacarigua where they seized a quantity of the items.

The items were stolen from the El Socorro warehouse between October last year and last week. Officers acting on information carried out surveillance at the home of a Caroni man. They later received key information that heavy duty refrigerators washing ma-chines and other items stolen from the El Socorro warehouse were being sold to persons at less than half of the original price. The information was later passed on to ACP Operations, Oswyn Alla-rd. The exercise which started on Wednesday ended yesterday. The seized items were photographed and later handed over to the owner. A 32-year-old employee of the warehouse was up to late yesterday assisting officers of the Central Division. Newsday learned that more items are yet to be recovered and more arrests are imminent.