The University of the West Indies’ (UWI) leading expert on national security and economic development, Professor Anthony Clayton, is dismissing suggestions that the perpetrators involved in the recent trend of ATM robberies are desperate. Instead, he believes the culprits have got more ambitious in their targets.

For the second time in less than a month, news broke yesterday (March 19) that a team of Beryllium security guards had come under attack from gun-toting robbers in Portmore, this time at a Scotiabank along Braeton Parkway. Four security personnel were injured during the resulting shootout.

The incident followed the theft of J$10 million at the Jamaica National (JN) Bank at Portmore Pines Plaza late last month. That incident left on Beryllium security guard dead and two others injured.

While speaking with Our Today on the most recent incident, Clayton said the robbery was unfortunate and showed another escalation in the level of crime in the society.

“It’s largely opportunistic. But clearly also there is something else happening here which indicates that the people behind this have got access to high-powered weapons and are becoming more ambitious in terms of their targets. Because these armoured vehicles are not soft targets. So it does mean that… we’re seeing an escalation in terms of the kind of ambition of these people,” said Clayton.

He then dismissed suggestions from persons on social media that the robbers must be desperate and that their actions were a reflection of the economic hardships being faced across the nation.

“Getting hold of these things like automotatic rifles and other high-powered weapons, these things are not cheap. So these guys are not and cannot be that desperate if they can be spending significant amounts of money on sourcing these weapons,” said Clayton.

He added that both operations show characteristics of commercial organised crime, given the thought, effort and resources that were put into the heists.

“It’s not just the few minutes that they are at the van, they want to make sure of its route and know how many people are with the vehicle and what time it does the drop offs, all of that sort of thing. You think about that in terms of the payday for the guys, then this is commercial organised crime, this is not desperation,” he stressed.

While speaking on Nationwide News Network this morning (March 20), Teddylee Gray, president of the Jamaica Association for Private Security (JAPS), said his organisation has been lobbying for higher powered weapons to compete with armed robbers.

“People say as security we are not doing our job, but the reality of it is that everybody saw what happened yesterday. We’re basically up against it with our baby .38 and our little shotgun, against men with their M-16,” said Gray.

“The security guards complain about the bulletproof vest, in terms of need to upgrade and the weaponry was the main talk. Try to upgrade the weaponry, at least give us an assault rifle also to protect ourselves… . We need weaponry to at least defend ourselves,” he stressed.

Additionally, Clayton said that advanced technology is needed in the form of concealed cameras around the vehicles that are monitored by others in a control room.

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