Armed robbers raid Koforidua cold store

Koforidua (Eastern Region) - Armed Robbers on Friday night raided a cold store at Koforidua, held the proprietress, workers and some customers hostage, collected all the money they could lay hands on and bolted.

Mrs Comfort Asamoah, Proprietress of Lescon Enterprises, a leading distributor of frozen food products, told the GNA that she had taken a consignment of products earlier in the evening from Tema, which was being discharged for sale, when a man armed with a gun entered the store at about 21:15 hours.

The man, whom she described as tall and stout and spotting a hat, demanded that she handed over all the money she had, or risk being shot dead with the customers present. She said while he was making his demand, two men equally armed with guns followed and forcibly dragged five porters, who were then at the entrance into the store.

Mrs Asamoah said she immediately complied with the demand of the robbers by giving them eight million cedis she had on her and an unspecified amount from the sales made that day.

"The customers, who were many, handed in cash ranging from 400,000 cedis and above over to them and despite our compliance, the robbers suspected we had an additional cash on us and threatened to shoot us if we did not hand them all over", she added.

Mrs Asamoah said after they had given them the money the robbers then asked them to go to a corner of the store while pointing the guns at them and warned some of the women, who wanted to attract attention that they would be killed if they made any noise.

She said one of the robbers aimed a gun at her but fired into the air, which scared her and she rushed into another corner while another robber kept vigilance on the rest.

Mrs Asamoah said she was so scared that she told them to take away everything they wanted but to spare their lives.

One of them, not satisfied, fired another shot, which attracted one of the male workers, who was then in the cold room and was unaware of what was going on. As soon as he stepped out, one of them hit his face with the butt of his gun. Blood started oozing out from his ears, she said, adding that he is being treated at the Koforidua Central Hospital.

Mrs Asamoah said after one of them had thrown away her phone and ransacked a fridge, the robbers, spontaneously firing warning shots, entered a car and sped off followed by a motorbike.

She said she immediately made a report to the Koforidua Central Police Station but they said they could not alert other Police posts because their phone was not working.

When GNA contacted the station to confirm the story, the Commander in charge was not available.