Call made for police to step up patrol at Wallilabou Bay

Yacht burglars are on the prowl in Wallilabou Bay and businessman Edmund “Chef” Morris is once again calling on the relevant authorities to step up patrols in the area.

Morris, speaking to SEARCHLIGHT last Thursday, said this is the time of year when yachts frequent the Bay, so security should be assigned to the area to protect the delicate yachting industry.

Morris revealed that last Wednesday night between 8 and 9.30 p.m., two yachts, one belonging to Germans and one to some Polish seafarers, were burglarized when the owners left them unattended to visit nearby restaurants.

Morris said that the Germans, some eight of them, patronized his Wallilabou Anchorage Restaurant, while the Polish visitors went to a nearby establishment.

On return to their vessels, they found that they had been burglarized.

The burglar/burglars stole cellular phones and money, and according to Morris, the Germans said that when they arrived on their boat, they saw watery footprints on the deck, which led them to believe that the person had not too long left the boat.

“It seems like whoever they were, they swam to the boats. Nobody saw anything, so that tells me that this something that is organized; the culprits monitor these people, so it is not some random guy that robbed them. They picked two boats that had no one on them because there were other boats in the harbour with people on them that weren’t touched,” said Morris.

The restauranteur said that something needs to be done urgently to curb these incidents of crime, as the negative publicity “is killing us”.

Morris noted that during the winter months, yachts come into our waters and we have to find a way to protect the tourists.

“I keep asking for security, it’s happening too frequent and it’s too early in the season for this. This happened last December, now in January again,” said Morris.

Last month, a family of six from Austria had their boat burglarized.

Also, on Friday, March 4, 2016 at around 2.30 a.m., two armed bandits boarded a yacht at Wallilabou and attacked a German family, killing 49-year-old accountant Martin Griff by shooting him in the throat.

The boat’s captain, 63-year-old Reinhold Zeller, was shot in his left shoulder, but survived.

Back then, Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves had promised to increase police presence in the area.