The Night We Were Robbed
7th June, 2002
Written by Helen James
In the early hours of 7th June, 2002, I had been working late on my computer. It was almost 3am when I shutdown and took a shower before going to bed. After living peacefully and without incident in our tiny village for 3 years, we were always confident sleeping with the doors and windows open because of the heat. We had high walls around the house and a dog in the yard. Not long after dozing off, we were awakened from our sleep by 6 men surrounding our bed, all pointing guns in our faces and shouting at us in Spanish. They had gained access to our house and made sure all the wooden shutters on the windows were closed before turning on the bedroom light and waking us.
They tied Mark's hands first and dragged him to the bathroom, throwing him onto the floor on his back. 2 of the men covered him the whole time with guns. Before tying me up, another 2 harrassed me with guns in my face, forcing me to remove all the gold I was wearing...which wasn't much, just a couple of sentimental pieces from my grandmother that can never be replaced. One of my fingers was cut when they forced a ring off that hadn't been off in 20 years. They then tied my hands and dragged me around the house by my hair, demanding that I show them where there was money hidden. They were already wearing the bumbag that we keep our cash in, but they were convinced that there was more. One man kicked Mark in the side of the head as he lay on the floor bound and gagged because he was angry that there wasn't more money in the house. The other man placed the barrel of his gun in Mark's mouth and pulled the trigger. Obviously, prior to doing this, he had unloaded the gun without him seeing it.
They continually threatened to kill us as they were visibly becoming frustrated at not finding a lot of money or valuables in the house, we never kept a lot of money in the house..we lived very simply there without a lot of 'things'. After approximately 45 minutes, they laid us both on the bed on our backs, tied our feet and hands with cables and gagged us again. They put pillows over our faces and kept placing the guns against it making 'bang' sounds. They turned out the light and closed the door. After a few minutes they came back into the bedroom demanding that we show them which button on the keys opened the car. We pointed as best we could and again they left the bedroom and turned out the light. We heard them set off the car alarm twice before gaining access successfully. Just before they left, one of the men came back into the bedroom, wiped his fingerprints off the light switch and was having one last go at terrorizing us. He kept turning the light on and off, then he'd close the door and pretend to leave, then fling the door open again and turn on the light to see if we had moved. He did this 3 or 4 times. Before his last time, he hovered over us and was making anti-American statements in very bad English. He pointed the gun at Mark's head and said "Chavez is in Venezuela and all Gringos go back NOW!! The only thought that was going through my mind under that pillow, was seeing my children getting a phone call telling them their mother was dead..it was the only thought in my mind and I couldn't shake it..I still can't. They loaded everything they had stolen into our car and drove off. They had stolen everything electrical in the house, jewellery and cash in both currencies (which wasn't that much). They also stole food from our freezer and had been eating and drinking during the robbery.
After we were sure they had gone, we managed to untie each other and race across the road to a Venezuelan co-workers house to call the police. Dennys tried to contact the Guardia Nationale here in our village, but could get no answer on the emergency number. We then called Mark's on-site technician who was working the night shift to contact the police in Pueblo Nuevo. It was over an hour before Pueblo Nuevo police arrived at our home. No fingerprints were taken and they had no notebooks to take down our statement. The sheer incompetence of these people in an event like this was amazing to us. We complied a list of all the stolen property and car description and gave it to them. He looked at it briefly and then handed it back. After about 30 mins of them walking around the totally ransacked house, they left and we drove to the PN police station to file a formal report. We gave them excellent descriptions of the men, which were really a gang of boys. I was driven home and Mark stayed at the police station. At about 7.30am, they received a police call that the car had been found abandoned in a remote trash dump in Punto Fijo. They had stolen Mark's hand held radios, so obviously they could hear what was taking place with the police and abandoned the car.
When we arrived at the car, the radio/CD player had been ripped out and the car battery removed. No other damage was found. We suspect that the police that found the car took those items as there is no doubt that the robbers would not have had enough time to transfer the stolen the goods to another car as well as worrying about the battery and stereo. The police found the car a litte too quickly for them to be above suspicion. To have to experience the so-called Venezuelan justice system was a whole other adventure. Incompetence, negligence and corruption on behalf of the local police and District Attorney's office was amazing to us. The law is totally on the side of the criminals. We got no co-operation from the DA and so we hired our own attorney to push them to take this seriously. The theft of the computers was considered a National Security matter and the Venezuelan military were very upset by it. They seemed to be the only ones, besides us that were taking this seriously.
We contacted PTJ and after 4 days, they came out to dust for prints. I can't fault the PTJ because they are working in very primitive conditions and do not have the technology that is afforded to us in more civilised countries. They were doing the best that they could without technology and were doing all they could to help us find the culprits. One of the items stolen was a video camera that had a recent film of our trip to Aruba in it. The PTJ cruised down to the slum areas with a video camera and filmed known suspects for us as they cruised the neighbourhood. They called us in to look at the boys they had filmed and we recognised one of them. PTJ arrested him and found 3 items of our property on him, one of which was the video camera. The theives had glowingly recorded themselves that morning on our tape and it was date stamped and timed. The time and date coincided with the morning of the robbery. We offered the boy immunity if he gave us the names of the rest of the gang, but he was too scared to do so. After a few months of forcing the DA to take action by our lawyer, we did get as far as a preliminary hearing and the boy was kept in jail and committed to a trial.
Unfortunately we will never know the outcome of this because in October, Mark was offered a new job back in the US and we had decided to accept it. The timing also coincided with a planned National strike in Venezuela in December, 2002 and it was getting very dangerous for us to stay there. We seized an opportunity to leave Paraguana a week earlier than scheduled. We shipped our belongings back, packed up the dog and cat, said goodbye to the wonderul people of Adicora who had been our neighbours and friends for all those years and we left. We have never been back and we have no intention of going back! Below is a captured shot of one of the suspected thieves that we retrieved from our video camera. We thank God constantly that we are still alive and able to tell our story...a Venezuelan couple a month earlier were also attacked in their home and were not as lucky as us. They were killed. Who knows how many more innocent people have been the victims of this dangerous gang after we left. If anyone recognises this person, please email us and give us the information. We would still like to pass on this information to the Punto Fijo PTJ.
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