Email

Print

Since Monday there have been three armed robberies of business establishments in Belize City and last night witnessed robbery number 4. It happened at the Blue Lagoon Bar on Euphrates Avenue where four females were overpowered by one man armed with a sawed off shotgun. But this robbery didn’t end like the others because police were waiting at the door for the robbery suspect who has been identified as one Abel Arana.

The Blue Lagoon Bar was closed today because last night at closing time it was robbed. The bar’s owner told us what happened off camera.

Marilyn Gomez,
“The same time when the bar was closing, when they came out to leave the place because it was closing, he went inside and pushed them inside and asked them for the money. But one of them, the cashier told him here is very everything right here and then she gave him the books. He asked where is the money and she said it is right in the books. That is what she told the man right.”

But money apparently wasn’t the only thing Abel Arana wanted.

Marilyn Gomez,
“He grabbed the girl and took her way to the bathroom and tried to rape her. He pulled her way to the bathroom but he didn’t did do it. At the same time when he tried that the police reach and when he saw the police, he tried to escape but at the same time when he tried to escape the police caught him. He didn’t take anything because we find the phones and the one sixty something which we made for the night. He didn’t take anything. The gun, he threw it under the table.”

Keith Swift,
The bar is closed right now, why is that?

Marilyn Gomez,
“Because they said they are afraid. I tell them they could open tomorrow. They said they will try and think and about it.”

For police the situation was a little more complex than it appeared to the proprietor of the bar. Police were reluctant to go in because they feared that if they caught Arana in the act, it could turn into a hostage situation. But at one point to flush him out, they released tear gas into the building. Robbery suspect Abel Arana is still being questioned by police. This is the third time in three months that Blue Lagoon has been robbed. The two previous occasions were in October and December. Reports are that Arana had recently been released from prison.