Yesterday evening, two Belize City residents were taken to the Belize City Magistrate’s Court and charged jointly for their involvement in the burglary of the Institute of Creative Arts (ICA), at the Bliss Institute, which occurred over the past weekend.
Lyjon Franklin, 28, a resident of a Plues Street address, was charged with aggravated assault and handling stolen goods, while Julie Avila, 26, address unknown, was only charged with handling stolen goods.
Franklin, because it is alleged he committed the crime with the use of a firearm, was denied bail and remanded to the Hattieville Prison, while Avila was granted bail, which she met.
Police say that in Franklin’s home, they found a cell phone that fitted the description of one of the items stolen from ICA.
The security guard, Darwin Gillett, 39, told police that sometime around 1:30 a.m. on Monday, June 4, he was on duty when he was attacked by three men wearing masks.
Gillett said the men tied him up and then ransacked the establishment.
We spoke on Monday morning with ICA’s Director, William Neal, 40. He described the ugly mess left behind by the intruders.
According to Neal, the intruders managed to gain entry into three offices for ICA, but how they effected that entry is yet to be discovered by the police. The intruders left no clues as to how they gained entry into the building, said Neal. There is no evidence of forced entry at the two entrances, and no broken windows leading to the inside.
It left the question of whether or not this was an inside job. William Neal refrained from commenting on this today.
Neal did tell us that there were three offices broken into by the intruders – the director’s office (his office), the finance department and the theatre office.
Stolen as a result were four guns – two shotguns and two handguns – and an unknown amount of cash, mostly from the proceeds of the Festival of Arts and a CARICOM event held Friday night.
Exactly how much cash was taken would be hard to determine, said Mr. Neal.
According to Neal, the security guard has told them that the men came from the theatre area, where he was caught off guard. He (the guard) had been sitting on a chair at the front main entrance.
The men quickly grabbed him and tied him up, then gagged him and left him in the theatre area, said Neal.
Then they made their way into the offices, and they appeared to know exactly what they were looking for, commented Neal.
The intruders did not take other valuables such as computers and other machinery that were inside. They didn’t even take a digital camera that was among some BTL prepaid Digicell packages. They were careful in selecting what they wanted and made sure that at the end, removed all the surveillance cameras and tapes from selected areas within the institution.
But they left a lot of mess. All three rooms were ransacked and documents taken from the drawers inside the rooms were thrown over the floor.
They left in a rush, it appeared, after spending about three hours inside, Neal added. They also pried open a safe that was in one of the rooms, taking all the valuables inside.
The mess forced ICA to close their doors to the public in order to clean up.
Police say they expect to make more arrests in the case.