A 57-year-old grandfather has been arrested for his alleged role in the armed robbery of the Lae International Hotel on the September 19.
According to police, the man was the human resource manager for a Lae company and is believed to have allowed the criminals to his company issued vehicle in the armed robbery.
Lae Metropolitan Superintendent, Anthony Wagambie, said the robbery was well planned which indicated that there was a well resourced group of individuals supporting the recent armed robberies in Lae City.
“CCTV footage obtained by police suggests that the same vehicle may have been used in a previous robbery,” Wagambie said.
In a space of 8 weeks, four businesses including Pelgens, Plumbtrade and Papindo have been robbed in similar fashion.
Earlier in the year, Z-mart and Raumai18 were also robbed.
While instances of piracy along the Morobe coast have been raised repeatedly this year, the action taken to fill in this policing gap with water policing units have been minimal.
In Lae, criminals have exploited weaknesses in policing by making their escapes by speedboats after abandoning the their getaway vehicles.
At the Beginning of the year, Chief Superintendent Wagambie, told the media in a news conference that he has made a budget submission of K250,000 to the Morobe Provincial Government for the purchase of four additional vehicles to be used for sector patrols in Lae City.
The submission remains unfunded.
