How thugs drilled a hole in city building to rob Shs242m

Thugs, who are still on the run, allegedly rented a building next to a forex bureau on Titanic Building on Johnson Street in Kampala three months ago.

Their mission was to rob unsuspecting Assured Forex Bureau proprietors of millions of shillings.

This duty was executed successfully at the weekend after they drilled a hole in the forex bureau and took off with Shs220m and $6,000 (about Shs22m).

Mr Abbey Muwutu, a businessman at Titanic building, told the Daily Monitor in an interview yesterday that a group of five people rented an office space next to Assured Forex Bureau and made an advance rent payment of three months.

“After occupying the room for some period, the thugs then carried some building tools and pretended to be renovating the offices. Having been accustomed to their daily operations, the thugs targeted the forex bureau safe. When they broke through the wall, they opened the money safe and ran away with Shs220m plus $6,000,” Mr Muwutu said.

The proprietors of Assured Bureau were not available for a comment by the time Daily Monitor visited the shop.

However, Kampala Metropolitan police spokesperson Patrick Onyango confirmed the incident.

He said thugs broke into the bureau on Sunday night while the proprietors were away.

“The thugs whose numbers are not known, first rented the next room near the bureau pretending to be businesspeople  for the opportunity to drill the wall that separates the two buildings to gain access to the bureau,”  Mr Onyango said.

He added that police sent a team of detectives to the scene to record statements from witnesses.

He added that the detectives are still viewing the CCTV footage to help with the investigations and identification of the robbers.

Background

In July, Kampala Central Police Station arrested three suspects for drilling a building at Arua Park with the intention to rob goods in the store.

It is alleged that the suspects went and booked a room at Golden Hotel at Edmond Building in Arua Park with intention of robbing the stores of a city businessman at Lafik Building.

However,  the police at Central Police Station foiled the robbery and arrested the suspects. They were charged with simple robbery and burglary.