Three individuals wearing motorcycle helmets and masks burst into the office of the Save Max supermarket on the corner of rue Cocoterie and rue Nicolay, Sainte Croix, and attacked the head cashier on the evening of Tuesday December 19. They made off with Rs 250,000, boxes of cigarettes and a bottle of whisky. However, a team from the Criminal Investigation Division (CID) of the Metropolitan Police’s Northern Division, who were passing by when the thieves left, were quick to intervene and apprehended one of them on a motorcycle. He was Max Dominique Rudy Noël, 56, alias Lapin, a resident of Cité CHA, Terre Rouge. Part of the loot, including the sum of Rs 208,725 and a bottle of whisky, was recovered after the suspect’s arrest. Two other suspects, including a woman, were still being sought on the evening of Wednesday December 20.
It was around 9:15pm on Tuesday evening, December 19, when the thugs broke into the supermarket through a door opening onto Route Cocoterie. The store was already closed to the public. The thunderous entrance of the three saber-wielding men gave Save Max staff no time to react. They all headed for the office where the safe is located. The 20-year-old head cashier, who lives in the Terre Rouge area, was threatened with knives and a dummy revolver to open the safe. The young woman had no choice but to comply. She handed over a sum of Rs 250,000 in various denominations and coins to the men.
Two other employees who were on the spot and who were trying to flee when the thugs arrived were forcibly taken into the office. The robbers also took several boxes of cigarettes and bottles of whisky.
Inspector Ashwin Lullith’s men, who happened to be passing by as the thugs fled, managed to apprehend Rudy Noël. The latter resisted arrest and injured two police officers. The latter were taken to the Dr. A.G. Jeetoo hospital in Port Louis for treatment. Police seized from Rudy Noël the sum of Rs 208,725 in notes and coins, twenty-one packs of Matinée cigarettes and a bottle of Jack Daniel whisky. A motorcycle on which he had arrived was seized. The officers were out looking for inmate Johnsley Gregory Deux-Novembre, who had escaped from the CID office in the morning, when they crossed paths with Rudy Noël, who was fleeing after the robbery. Suspect Deux-Novembre had been arrested on Tuesday December 5 in connection with a robbery.
Rudy Noël was taken to the CID office for questioning. Noël, who is known to the police, was uncooperative, said one of the police investigators. The suspect was brought before the Port-Louis court on Wednesday morning, December 20, on a provisional charge of armed robbery while wearing masks.
