Cozumel, Q.R. — Four people are being held for their involvement in a currency exchange house robbery in San Miguel last week. Police said Monday that they are accused of stealing approximately 2.4 million from the central Cozumel location.
The robbery happened on February 6 of this year at a currency exchange company on Benito Juárez Avenue in central Cozumel. Police said the group of four were captured less than 14 hours after the robbery.
During their arrests, they were found in posseison of narcotics and cash in varying demoniations of both Mexican pesos and USD. The value of the money, police said, was in excess of 2.4 millin pesos.
According to police, they had already made deposits into their personal accounts and intended to fly from Cancun to the State of Mexico.
Their arrests were made in coordination with National Guard and Municipal Police. “The three men and one woman are probably related to the robbery of a currency exchange house that occurred in the municipality of Cozumel in the early morning of February 6 of this year,” police said.
“The suspects, who were captured in less than 14 hours, are identified as Azarel “N”, Giezi Natanael, Adán “N” and Loamy Itzel “N”. They were intercepted on Kabah Avenue between Yaxchilán and Mayapán Avenues in Superblock 21 in Cancun and were in possession of alleged narcotics.
“After stopping them and inspecting each of them, police found doses of green and dried herb with the characteristics of marijuana, as well as cash in the amount of $10,535 dollars and 7,500 pesos, in addition to four deposit slips from banking institutions for amounts of 100,000, 200,000, 300,000 and 400,000 pesos, money for which they could not prove its origin.”
Police said they intended to go to the Cancun International Airport where they would board a flight to the city of Toluca, State of Mexico, where the four are originally from.
During the robbery, police stated that all four entered the establishment wearing ski masks, but at some point Azarel took it off and was caught on camera, so the owner recognized him as her former boyfriend.
Police used security footage from the Cozumel to Playa del Carmen ferry terminal to identify their whereabouts.
“To achieve the rapid arrest of these individuals, the valuable collaboration of the Quintana Roo Integral Port Administration (Apiqroo) was relied upon. This agency was asked to provide support through its surveillance cameras installed at the San Miguel Maritime Terminal to determine if the suspects had left the island.
“As a result of the above, Apiqroo immediately provided the required support by cross-referencing information between the evidence captured by the Municipal Police security cameras and the intelligent video surveillance systems with face detection and artificial intelligence technology, achieving the location and identification of the four people indicated.”
