Two men were arrested late Friday in connection with the armed robbery of a Cayman National Bank branch in Savannah last week.

Royal Cayman Islands Police said the men, aged 24 and 21, were arrested on suspicion of robbery. Police said the suspects fired a warning shot into the air during the Thursday lunchtime hold-up prior to taking an undisclosed amount of cash and fleeing in what one witness described as a Japanese-model vehicle.

A car matching the description of that vehicle was recovered Friday afternoon in the Spotts-Newlands area and is currently undergoing forensic examination.

Police were also reviewing closed-circuit television footage from cameras inside the bank and around the Countryside Shopping Centre complex.  

Rumours swirled around Grand Cayman Friday about the arrest of two young men from the North Side area in connection with the robbery. However, RCIPS officials denied that any arrests had occurred.

Police said that as of 5pm Friday several homes were searched as part of the investigation and that people were interviewed in connection with the robbery. The arrest itself did not occur until several hours later, officials said.  

A police spokesperson said the individuals who were the subject of press queries Friday afternoon were not the men who eventually ended up being arrested on suspicion of robbery.

No charges had been filed in the heist as of press time, and the two suspects had not been identified.  

Several customers and bank employees were inside the Cayman National branch during the Thursday robbery, but no one was hurt. One witness who spoke with the Caymanian Compass is not being identified by the newspaper to protect their identity.

The customer entered the bank to use the ATM after the robbery suspects had gone inside and didn’t realise what was happening at first.

“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 didn’t take very long 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 been driving that fast in a parking lot,” the customer said.

In the minutes after the robbers fled, the customer was informed by other customers that a gunshot had been fired by the suspects.

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

“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.

Last week’s bank robbery is just one of four to have occurred in the Cayman Islands within the past two decades. Previously, bank robberies have occurred in the Cayman Islands in 1989, 1994, and 2006 – all of the robberies occurred at Cayman National Bank branches.

The robbery shook up Cayman’s business community, which offered, in conjunction with Crime Stoppers, a $25,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the suspects.