Two trucks laden with goods and heading out of town were hijacked within an hour early yesterday morning by a gang of armed men on Spanish Town Road near the entrance to Riverton City, the municipal dump, and one of the capital’s more insecure neighbourhoods, especially after dark.

The thieves, in the first heist, kidnapped the driver and two sidemen, while in the second robbery a sideman was shot and injured.

But the police, upon learning of the robberies, swooped down on the bandits and were able to arrest three men.

Following the incidents, the Hunts Bay police issued an appeal to distributors of goods to take special security precautions in the run-up to Christmas. “They must be on the alert because people are trying to kidnap them,” said Detective Sergeant E N “Bud” Spencer, the sub-officer in charge of crime at Hunts Bay.

According to the police, the gang of about 13 men first blocked the Spanish Town Road at about 4:00 am with multiple forms of debris in the vicinity of the newly-refurbished bridge which spans the Sandy Gully. A white Isuzu truck, belonging to Albra Enterprises, was en route to Montego Bay with cosmetics, toiletries, mousetraps and other goods, when it was hijacked by the gun-toting gangsters.

The driver of the truck and two sidemen were kidnapped and taken to premises in Riverton City, police said. They were later found unhurt and subsequently freed by the police.

Yesterday, Karl Mitchell of Albra Enterprises said the truck was loaded with “just over a million dollars worth of goods”.

Detective Sergeant Spencer said their investigations led the police to an address on Henley Avenue in the nearby Waterhouse area where a group of men were seen unloading the truck.

Cops said the men shot at them and after a brief shoot-out they escaped, leaving the truck behind with most of the goods still intact. No one was arrested in that incident.

Just under an hour later, the highway robbers struck again. This time they used a red Mack truck to block the road at the same spot.

The driver of a white Mitsubishi truck, also headed to Montego Bay, spotted the roadblock and tried to reverse the vehicle in a bid to escape. But the gunmen opened fire, hitting one of the sidemen in his left leg. The gunmen then hijacked the truck and drove it into Riverton City where they stripped it of its contents of canned food, biscuits, juices and other foodstuff.

The police said they received information of the truck’s location and when they arrived in Riverton City they arrested three men – one whom they said was caught taking goods from the truck and two others who are suspected of blocking the road with the Mack truck.

In another operation yesterday morning, the Hunts Bay police found a 9mm Taurus pistol and 29 rounds of ammunition in the Ebony Park area of Olympic Gardens.

Two men – Glenton Lewis, also called “Frogman” and 19 year-old Victor Morrison – were arrested in connection with the recovery of the gun. Thirty cops, including members of the Caribbean Search Centre and 35 Jamaica Defence Force soldiers, took part in the pre-dawn operation which lasted until 9:00 am.

The cops said “Frogman” is known to be one of the top enforcers in the Ebony Park Road community. He was arrested after police said he was seen “acting suspiciously” in a yard. The yard was searched and the Taurus pistol allegedly found.

Morrison, who was with Lewis at the time, was searched and 10 rounds of 9mm cartridges were allegedly found in his possession.

During the operation, the police found three 7.62 rounds, the type used in AK-47 and M-16 assault rifles and six 5.56 rounds which are used in Self-Loading Rifles.

The finds bring to 92 the number of illegal firearms recovered by the St Andrew South police since the start of the year.

walkerk@jamaicaobserver.com