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Two robbers held up the owners of the well-known Sunny Side bakery on Racecourse street and stole over $2,000. Police say they believe robbers have been monitoring the bakery for some time.

ASP Alejandro Cowo
"Mr. Elon Pitterson, 57 years old of number 63 Racecourse Street was inside his businesses place Sunny's Bakery located at number 63 Racecourse Street along with his wife, when two male persons entered the establishment and held them up at gun point. As a result, the two male persons stole about two thousand two hundred dollars in cash from them. One of them was armed with a pistol and thereafter made good their escape."

Reporter
"Is there any indication if its just a crime of opportunity? Like is this a time when they were closing up and would have had more money in there and customers inside?"

ASP Alejandro Cowo
"No, they were the only persons inside the establishment and they were about to close when the incident happened."

Reporter
"So, it wouldn't be farfetched to conclude if the robbers had observed their movements?"

ASP Alejandro Cowo
"Yes. We believe they had been monitoring them since the information that we were getting is that they had sighted the robbers about two hours before circling the area."

Reporter
"Are there any suspects?"

ASP Alejandro Cowo
"Yes. Police had two persons detained but had to release them because of certain procedures that we have to do before we do anything else."

Police believe the suspects are from the same neighborhood.

Because fo this succession of armed robberies of businesses, the Commissioner of Police Chester Williams sent out a release on Sunday. It says, quote, "The Belize Police Department, warns the general public about a spike in robberies countrywide and particularly where business places are being targeted.….the police is doing what we can to mitigate this situation; however, we ask that you also employ your own precautionary measures such as, never keep more money than is necessary in your stores, do not allow hanging out/loitering, or public drinking in front of your place of business, call and report every suspicious activity to the police, do not open beyond your opening hours….and limit the number of persons who have knowledge of where cash in larger quantity is been kept.

The police will step up our presence within the business sector, without disregarding the residential areas. Aggressive stop and search, especially of known criminals, sporadic vehicular checkpoints and a series of intelligence-led operations targeting known criminals, are some of what will be done to address this problem."