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ISO, police foil armed robbery at Fang Fang
A joint team of Internal Security Organisation and police personnel have arrested two soldiers in a foiled armed robbery at Fang Fang Hotel. COURTESY PHOTO
What you need to know:
- Last week, the Inspector General of Police, Mr Martins Okoth Ochola said they are devising measures of fighting violent crime, especially in urban areas. The police crime report shows more than 7,000 cases of robbery were registered last year.
Kampala. A joint team of Internal Security Organisation and police personnel have arrested two soldiers in a foiled armed robbery at Fang Fang Hotel near Sheraton Kampala Hotel last Sunday night.
The security forces identified the suspects as Cpl Abbas Majid and Lance Cpl Ivan Asiimwe.
They say the suspects were armed with two Sub-Machine Guns loaded with 300 bullets. They allegedly attacked the hotel at midnight but were intercepted by ISO and police officers. They were arrested together with the driver Ivan Opio but a fourth suspect is on the run.
The restaurant normally hosts Chinese investors and guests.
Brig Richard Karemire, the army spokesperson, confirmed the arrests.
“The UPDF arrested some soldiers who were suspected of being complicit in a plan to conduct a robbery. We commend the effective intelligence that made it possible to counter such planned crime,” Brig Karemire told Daily Monitor yesterday.
This is the second major robbery attempt that ISO operatives have bust in three months.
In March, ISO operatives shot dead two suspected armed robbers, including a former Special Forces Command soldier, who robbed a bullion van at Kyambogo, a city suburb.
Trailed
In the Sunday incident, a security source said the ISO received intelligence that the suspects were going to rob Fang Fang and trailed them.
The source said suspects in a Honda sedan car drove to the restaurant yard and did not reveal to the private security guards at the premise that they were armed as is the requirement.
The source said when the suspects detected that ISO personnel had cornered them, they opened fire, prompting the security operatives to fire back several bullets in the air as a warning to the suspects to surrender or be shot. The suspects surrendered.
Armed robberies in the country have been on the rise since the year started.
Last week, gunmen killed three people and robbed Cheap General Hardware shop in Nansana in Wakiso District of unspecified amount of cash.
It was a third armed robbery in the area in which victims were killed in less than a month.
Last week, the Inspector General of Police, Mr Martins Okoth Ochola said they are devising measures of fighting violent crime, especially in urban areas. The police crime report shows more than 7,000 cases of robbery were registered last year.
