Police immediately respond to Thursday afternoon’s bank robbery at Cayman National in Countryside.

Brent Fuller

Unaware of what was going on, a customer walked into the bank to use an ATM shortly after the robbers arrived.

The Caymanian Compass is not identifying the customer in order to protect their identity.  

“I just saw a tall, thin kid standing there in a mask holding a silver gun,” the bank customer said. “At first, I thought the thing was a toy and somebody was playing a joke.”

It took just half a second to realise the suspects weren’t joking.

“He pointed the weapon at me and shouted at me to ‘get down, get down,’” the customer said. “By the time I got down on the floor, I looked back up and the second guy was running out the door.”

The customer then saw a small Japanese-model vehicle speed off from the Countryside parking lot and assumed it was the suspects. But the customer never saw the men enter the car.

“I felt like it couldn’t have been anybody but them; no one else would have driving that fast in a parking lot,” the customer said.

Royal Cayman Islands Police said one shot was fired into the air during the heist, which occurred around 12.30pm. No one was hurt but staff members were threatened by the suspects, police said.

“We did have customers and staff inside,” said bank President Orman Williams. “We don’t want any of our staff to be heroes.”

Both men made off with an undisclosed sum of cash and ran into the parking lot shortly afterward.

The customer who walked in on robbery wasn’t aware a shot had been fired until one of the other customers inside told him.

The 911 emergency centre was contacted shortly after the robbery suspects fled the bank.

“The other customers were…kind of asking the security guard ‘what are you going to do?’ And it was finally one of (the customers) that called 911,” the customer said.

Armed RCIPS officers, police tracking dogs, the Cayman Islands Helicopters aircraft, and police crime scene investigators responded within minutes of the robbery report. No arrests had been made immediately.   

The shot was apparently fired inside the bank. None of the customers or workers in the surrounding Countryside Centre businesses heard the gunfire.

One woman at the nearby Countryside Office Suites said she was notified about the robbery by a friend who called her from downtown George Town.

Mr. Williams said the bank did have security guards on premises at the time of the heist, but he said those guards were not armed.

“Obviously we have concerns about security,” he said.

Bank robberies in the Cayman Islands are extremely rare. The last one to occur happened 10 March, 2006 at the Cayman National Bank Branch in Centennial Towers, West Bay. That was also a lunchtime robbery.

Prior to that, the last bank robbery on Grand Cayman happened in the 1990’s.

Immediately after the robbery, armed RCIPS officers were seen patrolling Hirst Road, adjacent to the Countryside property. There was also a visible police presence along Shamrock Road through Savannah Thursday afternoon.

Nearby Savannah Primary School took extra precautions immediately following the robbery.

Principal Margaret Rattray said school doors and gates were locked for the protection of students. Any parents who wanted to collect their kids from school early were allowed to do so.