Spate of bank heists continues

Santo Domingo.- Five armed men assaulted a Banco Popular branch in a plaza in Santo Domingo Este at noon Thurs., the second heist in the millions in as many days.

On Wed. two men on a motorcycle assaulted the employees of a betting parlor in Azua (south), and fled with around RD$2.0 million.

According to witnesses at the Popular bank, the men arrived on two motorcycles, disarmed the guard, three of them entered the premises and two remained outside. The robbers didn’t cover their faces.

They leveled all the staff of the bank and, after firing a shot, forced them to hand over the cash from the crates while those who remained outside pointed their weapons at several adjacent establishments so that nobody would look towards the scene.

The Banco Popular said last night that the robbers fled with the loot in dollars, pesos and euros totaling around RD$5.2 million.

“five armed men neutralized the two guards, stripped them of their weapons, entered with them to the branch, warned that there was an assault, the personnel behaved as Actually the protocol indicates, the scientific police is doing its job and we have to wait for it to end for our audit staff who are here already, do the work and establish the amount subtracted,” said the bank’s PR, José Mármol.