Thieves plague Old Harbour businesswoman, losses estimated at $2 million

Throughout the last quarter of 2019, Alberga disclosed her businesses have been burglarized on several occasions, with losses estimated at approximately $2 million.

A couple of her businesses are based in Old Harbour Bay – a coastal community of a few thousands residents – said by security officials to be one of island’s major transshipment point in the guns for drugs trade between Jamaica and Haiti.

Speaking Monday morning to Old Harbour News from her off-track betting shop at Gutters – one of many she owns – a visibly upset Alberga said: “Between November and December they broke into 80 percent of the businesses in Old Harbour Bay, while a state of emergency is in full swing. They broke into my off-track (at Old Harbour Bay) two times.

“We have a container that sells fishing equipment, they clean out that one too. They broke into two hardware: the one on the beach and Max Hardware on the main road. They broke into a liquor store and empty that one out and they empty the bar beside the liquor store.”

While the brazen nature of the thieves is abhorred, she lamented it is more disheartening that a security post is placed at the main entry point of the fishing community as part of enforced measures under a prolonged public state of emergency in effect since September 2019 in the parish.

“I wouldn’t say I lose $5 million but about $2 million,” she assessed, before noting that the hoodlums “took out the cigarettes, they empty the bar, they go into the cashpot shop… lucky for me they didn’t get a chance to take out the TVs (televisions) because the TVs are welded in.”

“On three occasions they try to break into the shop that sells fishing items. But believe me they came back and made a good clean,” she added.

Thieves also broke into another of Alberga’s off-track betting shop located along East Street, Old Harbour, where she lost five 55-inch TVs, a digital video recorder (DVR) among other items. In another raid, she said louts also made off with $800,000 worth of new stock from her liquor store one night, mere hours after the goods had arrived in the day.

“And all now them (the police) don’t find a man for it,” she said in a frustrating tone.

Like many other business persons, Alberga, who is well known in the horseracing industry, said the strategy employed under the SOE isn’t working.

“It’s not effective, it’s not effective, it’s not working,” she said. “Not in Old Harbour Bay. It’s a total waste of everything in Old Harbour Bay.”

SOE not working

“They talking about the ZOSO (zones of special operations), the ZOSO is just not effective because they blocked one side of the community and on the other road that comes through Lloyd’s Pen, they have nobody (police post) there. So anybody can do as they like when they lock them down and the roads are empty, that is when the rats (criminals) come out,” said Alberga.

One burglar was captured after a review of the security footage at one of Alberga’s establishment. But she’s not pleased with the snail’s pace approach by the police to apprehend the others.

“It took a long time for them to catch the person. The person was selling my cigarettes on the beach and everything; and the police just could not catch them.

“They said they didn’t know the person, but the person was on the beach selling cigarettes for like $400 a pack. Although they caught one, we still having break-ins because they still break into Max Hardware and clean it out and they just keep breaking in even with the state of emergency.

“When the state of emergency wasn’t there, Old Harbour Bay was peaceful more than what is going on there now. It’s stressful,” she told Old Harbour News.

Under the SOE persons are prohibited from being on the road after 11:00 am, even though businesses were recently granted a special exemption to operate up to 4:00 am in some instances during the festive season. But Alberga argued that with the public forced to stay indoors before midnight, burglars are having a field day.

“You take everybody from off the road who would probably know the thief and probably buck-up the thief on the road. But you tell them to stay in and the thief is coming out and they doing everything because they know that the police are only at one spot.

“It can’t work and as far as I am concern it’s a total waste of money. They should be reimbursing all the people who lose things down there.

“I hope they don’t bother vote back for it. I am against it totally. We need community social interventions where the police interact with the people. You need police to patrol. The soldiers should be walking with the police,” she said while acknowledging that the police have a difficult task given the resource constraints.

“I would love to find out exactly how much gun or how much ganja or coke (cocaine) they find down in (Old Harbour) Bay to be having that (state of emergency)… the business people have been losing, the whole of December,” said Alberga.