A police operation mounted during the night of January 10 to the morning of Tuesday, January 11 in the wake of the robbery perpetrated at the jewelry store PS Patten at Rue La Reine, Port-Louis has recovered four gold jewels and a sum of Rs 40,000 from Louis Dante Begué, aged 22 and a resident of the National Housing Development Corporation (NHDC) apartments, Baie du Tombeau. The latter confessed that he was aware that the jewels came from a theft. Dante Bégué was brought before the Port-Louis court this Tuesday morning, January 11.
The investigation of the Criminal Investigation Division (CID) of the Metropolitan Police of the Northern Division, led by Inspector Seelochun, Sergeant Gujadhur with the assistance of the Field Intelligence Office of the division has put itself on the trail of an alleged fence. On the basis of certain information, a police raid was carried out in NHDC, Baie du Tombeau with the men of the Mauritian Police Intervention Group and those of the Special Supporting Unit during the night of January 10 to 11.
The house of Dante Bégué was searched and this exercise allowed the recovery of a gold ring with the initials PP, a gold chain with a daïe as a pendant, a gold bracelet and a sum of Rs 40 000 in different denominations. These jewels are suspected to come from the robbery at the PS Patten jewelry store on the morning of Friday, January 7. During this robbery, the owner, aged 39, was assaulted. The jewels and the sum of Rs 45,000, the total value of which amounts to Rs 4,193,900, had been taken. Dante Bégué told CID investigators that he had bought the jewelry from a man named Mongiste and that he was aware that the jewelry was stolen.
Joanito Aglae, a 36 year old notorious recidivist, is the alleged mastermind of this robbery. He is still wanted. Within 24 hours of the robbery, Jean Nicolas Jérôme Lajoie, a 38 year old scaffolding fitter and resident of Batterie-Cassée, Roche-Bois, was arrested as Joanito Aglae’s accomplice. If the resident of Roche-Bois claims his innocence in this case, he was identified by the brother of Joanito Aglae, Antonio Patrick Aglae, a 32-year-old butcher, and her companion as the person who had passed by their home in Nicolay Road, St. Croix with Joanito Aglae after this robbery. It would be the one who carried a bag ‘raffia’ filled with jewels.
