Four people accused of playing varying roles in a bank burglary during which more than half-a-million dollars was stolen from Royal Bank of Canada’s Shedden Road branch in 2016, are on trial before the Grand Court.
The defendants – David Samuel Bodden Jr., Statan Omar Clarke and Elton David Webster – are each charged with one count of burglary in relation to the theft of CI$464,910 and US$126,187 from cash-dispensing machines on the night of 22 June 2016.
Webster’s wife, Eliza Webster, was charged with one count of possession of criminal property in relation to US$4,020 that was seized from her at Owen Roberts International Airport some three weeks after the incident.
All four defendants have denied the charges.
“The evidence will show that these defendants worked together to execute a sophisticated burglary of the Royal Bank of Canada,” said prosecutor Nicole Petit, during her opening statement on Tuesday, 19 March.
Petit told the jurors that Bodden, who was an employee of the bank, was the “inside man” who provided accomplices Clarke and Webster with access to the cash dispensers.
“David’s fob activity shows that he was the last bank employee to leave the building that night. It also shows that he was the last person on the cash floor, even though his company policy prohibited such access during those hours,” Petit told the court.
She added, “There was no sign of forced entry, and that is because the burglars were let in by someone who had access and insight on the bank’s internal security measures.”
Sequential bank notes
In what is believed to have been a matter of minutes, Clarke and Webster are said to have accessed four of the bank’s six machines, stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars, the vast majority of which were in Cayman Islands banknotes of $1, $5 and $10, along with US banknotes of $20, $50 and $100.
“Of the six machines, only the four machines which had cash were open and on the floor, so it begs to ask how would they know which machines to touch and which ones to leave alone,” asked Petit rhetorically. “That’s because they had David’s assistance and we know it is Statan and Elton who were inside the bank because of cellphone tower evidence which places them in and around the bank at the time of the incident.”
Police are said to have discovered their first major clue in relation to the bank burglary three weeks after the incident, when the Websters were stopped at the airport with more than US$7,000 in cash.
It is not clear why the couple was stopped and searched. However, Petit told the court that, upon careful review, the officers discovered that Eliza Webster had in her possession $4,020 of those US notes made up of $100, $50, and $20, which were in sequential order.
“The officers initially questioned as to where she got the money from and why was it still so fresh and crisp, to which Eliza responded that the money was from her savings, as well as money she had borrowed from her friends and parents,” Petit said.
The jury heard that subsequent checks revealed that the seized money had been in a Bank of America branch in Florida before being shipped to the Royal Bank of Canada Shedden Road branch 15 days before the burglary.
An eight-year delay
When addressing the eight-year delay between the night of the burglary and start of the trial, Petit told the court it was due to a series of difficulties.
“You might ask why the case took so long to come before the courts, and… the simple answer is that it went cold,” she said. “However, a new set of detectives took over the investigations and have painstakingly gone over every piece of evidence, tracked and traced every phone call and have managed to piece together the events of that night.”
According to Petit, the delay has brought with its challenges to the prosecution’s case, as several witnesses were no longer able to give evidence for a multitude of reasons, and those who are able to attend court may have “understandably found their memories have faded”.
The trial is expected to last two months, during which each of the four defendants will remain on bail.
A fourth suspect, a former police officer who was initially arrested in relation to the burglary, was never charged.
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