‘Beware of people in hoods, helmets’

The Ghana Police Service has advised members of the public to beware of people who enter bank premises, markets, shops or business areas wearing hoods or helmets.

It said the new trend of robbery was that the robbers in order to avoid being captured on the closed-circuit televisions (CCTVs) had adopted a method of hiding their identities that way.

The Director-General of the Police Public Affairs Directorate, Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Mr David Senanu Eklu, who disclosed this in an interview with the Daily Graphic in Accra yesterday, said the robbers used motorbikes to trail their victims from banks or shopping centres then attack them when they got the chance.

Motorbikes

He said the robbers moved around with two or three motorbikes in a row and whenever they struck they quickly passed the booty on to a different motorbike in order to escape arrest.

The robbers, he said, usually operated on Fridays and weekends when commercial activities were at their peak and people had gone to make purchases for the week.

ACP Eklu said the robbers currently operated at a number of communities in Tema, especially Community Six and some parts of Accra.

He said two of such robbers were arrested at a bank premises in Tema where the victim had gone to withdraw money and they had followed him from his office to the bank.

Surveillance

According to ACP Eklu, the police had mounted intensive surveillance at flash points where the robbers usually attacked their victims.

“We want to emphasise that banks, businesses, pharmacy shops, forex bureaux, provision shops among others, should have strict access control mechanisms to their premisses.

 For example, people who enter their premises with helmets or sweaters with hoods should become potential suspects,” he stated.

He indicated that security guards should also be vigilant to ensure that people with hoods or helmets were not allowed into their premises.

He advised members of the public to be security concious whenever they went out to transact business in order not to fall victim of the activities of the robbers.

ACP Eklu said if rigorous measures were adopted it would help check the menace.