Hotel construction site $300k payroll robbed at gunpoint
(CNS): Dozens of workers employed at the Grand Hyatt construction site in George Town protested on Tuesday because the contractor was unable to pay them after robbers allegedly stole $300,000 in an armed heist of the payroll on Monday. However, the construction workers, many of whom are permit holders, were complaining about problems getting paid even before the alleged theft of this month’s payroll.
CNS learned from another member of the construction sector familiar with the situation that the angry workers were also complaining about other labour infractions, including unpaid pensions and health insurance, and even, on occasion, a failure to supply drinking water on the site.
A release from the RCIPS, which CNS was able to confirm is connected to the payroll robbery, states that the money was taken shortly after 3:50pm on Monday in the parking lot of 454 Commercial Centre on Eastern Avenue.
A man was held up by three masked men, one of whom was armed with a gun. The police said they took a cell phone and a large quantity of money, which CNS understands was $300,000 for the payroll at the construction site.
The robbers then fled the scene in a Honda CR-V, travelling along Eastern Avenue. No shots were fired, and no one was injured during the incident. Police conducted an immediate search and recovered the cell phone. During a subsequent search, the suspected vehicle was located. Both the cell phone and vehicle are in the custody of the police. However, the suspects remain at large.
Anyone who witnessed the incident or has any information about the robbery is asked to call 911 or George Town CID at 949-4222. Anonymous tips can be provided to the RCIPS Confidential Tip Line at 949-7777 or the website. Tips can also be submitted anonymously via the Cayman Crime Stoppers website.
CNS has also contacted the Ministry of Labour for comment regarding the workers’ protest, which saw the hotel project grind to a halt for the day, and the allegations of labour law infractions. We are awaiting a response.
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Ridiculous – why are people getting paid in cash? If all honest, legal and valid WP holders, they should have bank accounts and funds deposited into there. Smells dodgy to me.
Sounds to me like it was staged.
commission or fixed? questions questions
Amazing, to think financial transactions are still in the 1900’s in the World renowned financial capital of the Caribbean.
😦 🫣
JOCC was recently carrying around suitcases full of cash. Around $800,000? I guess it is usual and normal here. Who said that Cayman is one of the world’s financial centres? More like a mom-and-pop shop in The Pitcairn Islands.
Troll
Truth is not trolling.
There got to be regulations about paying employees and safeguarding the designated money. I think even in the third world countries things like that don’t happen
And they said slavery had been abolished in the Cayman Islands.
Should probably check who called in sick that day.
Obviously an inside job- Fred ya wan import cheap labour and abuse these poor ppl.. that what ya get
Why anyone thinks Fred actually had the money in the first place is the real question here.
A Matt Brown skit waiting to happen.
“Fred you got the payroll?” “Who me?”
Lmao, Wa Happenin 2025 here we come
This is a symptom of a larger problem. These workers aren’t necessarily paid minimum wage, but it is the minimum wage that keeps Caymanians down. The REAL problem is that government is addicted to work permit fees. All our recent governments believe that we have to build MORE and more and more, and to fund that, they need work permit fees.
It’s the reason that they are always pushing for the cruise ports, because the head count of passengers ashore is measured in dollars to the CIG coffers. Think about that. It’s the reason they don’t want to raise the minimum wage to a figure that a Caymanian could live on. Government takes care of government, and those that are not CIG employees are still tasked with paying for them, only without personal benefit.
If any administration truly cared about the welfare of the people, the citizens of Cayman, the Caymanians of Cayman, they would raise the minimum wage, so that people on NAU had an incentive to work, rather than draw benefits from NAU. Alas, that would mean less work permits. We can’t have it both ways, folks, and right now there is this thing where expats don’t ever seem to go home after the job. Nope. We keep growing more and more and our roads are choked with cars well beyond its capacity to serve them.
I will vote for anyone who wants to raise the minimum wage to a living wage, and enforce the rollover. Maybe even shorten it. We have too many people. Road extensions won’t help. Developers just want to exploit the last of our resources, and THAT should be curtailed. Trickle-down economics stops about 1/4 of the way down the slope.
We are all paying for benefit which we aren’t receiving. It’s not the fault of the CIG employees; they are doing their best, same as the rest of us. It’s the fault of the various governments, who want to sacrifice the environment for their largess.
“The REAL problem is that government is addicted to work permit fees.”
This is complete nonsense. Work permit fees are less than 10% of CIG revenue.
Would you give up 10% of your income? Would it affect your budget and lifestyle?
Do not underestimate the impact of that 10%, and do not equate a $500 construction permit to a $30,000 financial services work permit.
An inside job. Bring in Inspector Morse.
Agreed, given the scumbags involved over decades of criminal scumbaggery, enabled by low people in high places, it definitely smells of insider corruption.
If you want to see this solved they will have to bring in someone. The Kangaroo cops can’t solve most things right in front of them.
Something smells really bad here.
That is the dump. You can smell as far back as Delworths.
It’s not the dump, it’s the Water Authority’s mismanaged impending disaster of a sewage treatment plant.
If you’re of the top floor of this project you can taste the dump; let alone smell it.
Unfortunately this doesn’t seem to matter anymore, as can be seen by the fact that a 1br/1b at Swampside (AKA Lakeside) Villas is going for like $350k. Absurd.
That is the dump. You can smell it as far back as Delworths.
No this job is too big for Inspector Morse, only Inspector Clouseau can handle this Cayman Islands clown show. Go for the best.
You can bet your boots this isn’t covered by insurance. A single employee hand carrying $300K in cash, same time and place every week. There’s no fixing stupid, but there’s no way an insurer would be carrying that risk.
“same time and place every week”
And only now he is robbed?
I am suprised it’s taken this long given we seem to have armed robberies on the daily.
For those asking why pay in cash, do you think those construction workers have bank accounts for cheques or direct deposit? Even when you have all the documentation it is a nightmare to open a bank account here. Pretty sure none of those guys has a certified proof of address. Agreed, should have been better security to transport the cash. You would think it would be a big name reputable construction company but sounds like it is the usual sht can company of which there are way too many here.
That’s why God invented check cashing companies. I’m leery of any legitimate company paying cash to its employees
These guys need every dollar they earn out in 95F heat plus humidity for 8hrs a day. Maybe they just can’t stomach giving the bank a percentage of their cheque to have it cashed.
There’s also a fee at these cheque cashing companies applied, that’s part of the reason for straight cash payment.
No bank should allow anyone to take out that amount of cash.If these workers legitimately worked for the construction company they should have to have bank accounts but they don’t want to pay any fees whatsoever and in most cases have a W/P taken out by one of their countrymen who doesn’t have work for them. Every one of them should be interrogated before being paid as of course some of them set it up for their friends to rob the person.
Okay Mussolini. The workers are not the bad guys. Across the world, there is a segment of the population referred to as “unbanked”. That’s not their fault and certainly no reason for them to “be interrogated” before being paid.
You should definitely be able to take as much of YOUR own cash out of the bank at your own risk. Giving Banks more power over your money is not the answer.
Not the same incident but check out this video of one of the contractors involved over on CMR: https://www.facebook.com/CaymanMarlRoad/videos/1088889662774549/
It’s beyond disgusting but sadly not surprising. The young man lost his job for speaking out. Serious props to him.
Got to be an inside job. How would the robbers know the pay dates of the workers and who to target to steal the money? Also why when handling that much cash did they not have armed guards or an armored vehicle!? I know they have this service on island.
Bit fishy..
Sounds like an inside job of knowing such an enormous amount of money in cash would be held by a person. Who does that? Pay their workers via cash instead of bank deposit🤯 …. surprised a big hotel chain publicly traded company Hyatt would conduct themselves like this. This is something that 3rd world or during the Great Depression pre-labor law exploitation of workers. Whole thing smells fishy
Hyatt isnt building the hotel or financing it, and will not own it. Hyatt will just be managing and marketing it for a fee.
And yet, the Hyatt brand name is promoted in every advertisement. Horrible imagery.
I am sure the hotel investors will be devastated to hear that the company they employed to build the hotel are alleged to be in breach of multiple labour laws.
No doubt they will conduct a thorough investigation and ensure any infractions are remediated.
😂 Oh you…good one.
inside job.
question for police…if i have dashcam footage of the incident, do you want it?
Why ask here? Call them instead of posting anonymously.
The police can’t read your mind.
police have never asked people for it….i keep wondering why?
The JDF FKA RCIPS and the rest of their co-conspirators in the judiciary generally won’t prosecute their fellow countrymen.
any comment from remax?
or are we all just getting scammed again?
?? Why REMAX, they are just one of the selling agents, selling units on behalf of the developer for a commission. Not their property.
Which BANK is giving this contractor $300K in CASH each month?
its every fortnight and CNB
Who had the idea of one person having 300k in cash on them? Also, we’re looking for someone with a lot of $50s and $100s, since I doubt the person was carrying 30kg+ in money.
There’s so much stupid going on here. Plus, I’ll bet many WORC infractions and labour law issues. This is probably the best way to unearth all the ridiculous stuff that probably goes on at countless large construction sites.
There is something very sketchy about this whole thing. How would the robbers of known who to target and at what time? Some of those workers MAY have been in on the heist. Perhaps disgruntled workers who were fed up of not being paid on time took matters into their own hands.
Either way, Cayman is headed into some very troubling times and we don’t have the right leadership at the helm to navigate.
why are they paying them in cash??????????????
Ask the Cayman Islands Bankers Association. Banks do not want to open accounts for these laborers, and they refuse to cash a cheque with the only option being to deposit the cheque to your account. This in turn forces the contractors to pay their workers in cash. Banks have been allowed to do whatever they want and high time they are put in their place.
the cayman way of ‘cleaning’ money.
You ever tried opening a bank account?
When I arrived on island, one of the first things I did was to go open a bank account and get a drivers lisence, my employer brought me to both locations.
Probably because they can’t get a bank account. Do you live in Cayman?
The banks no longer cash checks and many of these laborers are unbanked. Added to the fact that the workers generally send most of the money they receive back home through JN or Moneygram services which only take cash for payment.
The banks should be forced to cash checks again so that large sums of cash are not needed to be handled.
They can not issue checks to workers but to the work permit holder. These unscrupulous workers do not want to pay the “fee” to the person taking out the permit for them so when they get cash they screw over the Caymanian who got them the permit. This is Jamaica style bro!
The person taking out the permit for them? And why pray tell should you have to pay someone for your own work permit? Quite apart from the fact that it’s illegal. As is taking out a permit under false pretence sea. But yeah, accords to you it’s the sweated labour that’s unscrupulous, not the human trafficker.
This should be illegal and I can’t imagine he has any business insurance to cover this either because who in their right mind would insure such a risk, let alone money laundering, hello ACC?
Anyone who’s lived in Cayman long enough and actually mingles in with the community knows that most of those workers are abused by the companies and individuals that employ them, and somebody is enabling/complacent/turning a blind eye and potentially benefitting from the arrangement.
The obvious question is why cash? It’s crazy mad, raises multiple red flags and sounds dodgy. Individuals I spoke to over time usually cite difficulties opening bank accounts, but I suspect the employer exploits this for personal financial gain and I know of too many cases where three illegal deductions are made from workers pay:
1. Work permits! They pay for the work permits and then claim it back by way of monthly deduction from pay. Paper trail proves they pay, cash trail hides the fact they claim it back.
2. Pensions, only for workers to later find out their pension does not exist, or were cancelled by the employer after being taken out.
3. Health insurance. Same as 2.
In fact CNS, didn’t I read that the BT minister was even guilty of at least one of these?
Then we have the unpaid overtime as highlighted by Kyle’s video now posted on CMR. XXXX
Finally, barely any of these companies have adequate or even basic health and safety policies, signage equipment or insurance for their workers, although I do know of several cases where the employer also deducts cost of H&S equipment from salaries.
It’s hard to speak up and lose your job as Kyle did. I’m proud of him.
#belikeKyle Cayman. Stand up for what’s right.
ACC is government corruption
It should be illegal to withdraw your own money? Its people like you that give the Bankers Association the confidence to erode our sovereignty with our own hard-earned money.
It’s not his own money it belongs to the company who owe it to their workers and ought to have insurance when operating on massive contracts like this. Hence my point about insurance and money laundering potential. Companies are subject to AML regs too.
How naive are you? A lot of their workforce wouldn’t be able to open a bank account. And they get paid so little couldn’t afford banking fees.
Sounds to me like the issue is that people should be paid more and we should stop importing poverty to work for slave wages.
to avoid being procsecuted for employing a guy with a landscaping permit, as a mason.
ding ding ding!
Because most of the retail banks have ceased cashing cheques for non-customers, and many expat workers in construction don’t have a local bank account.
why on earth is $300k able to be robbed at gunpoint? Don’t we have ways of avoiding this? Perhaps smaller amounts deposited, armed vehicles.
Also, how is a company that is building a structure like the Grand Hyatt not afloat enough to handle this kind of problem and pay your staff? The top dogs are the ones who should be bearing the brunt of this issue, not your staff.
Government force the developer to hire Caymanians. There are 5 main Caymanian contractors hired and they supply workers.
The ministers then take a cut of the hourly wages each week.
Bullshit.
What’s not bullshit is Kyle’s video evidence over on CMR. Scumbags are involved in this and they need rooting out right the way to the top of the totem pole.
That is total garbage. LG is the local partner for some French company and all they have done is hire a bunch of labor brokers to get them cheap workers. The reason they are paying off in cash is because a lot of these workers are just people off the street who buy their own permits. By paying cash they get out of following the law because if they paid in a check, then they would be guilty of working someone without a permit but by paying cash they just put it off to the person who pulls the permit. This is a normal scam going on all these job sites now. The government needs to crack down, hold the main contractor responsible for allowing the site to be operated in this manner. This project is a problem and will continue to be a problem until government stops allowing these companies to come in here and run over people. Guess Seymour will be getting right on to it. Will WORC be going and checking the status of all these workers to make sure they are working under the terms of their work permit?
Don’t forget the Health Insurance Commission, DCI, and Pension authorities. All seemingly turning a blind eye.
Grand Hyatt> Public Beach 2.0
This crap by the two main general contractors is destroying the businesses of legitimate contractors who follow the law. Why not check out the hotel site 1 Georgetown place as the same LG is on that one.
Somebody got there first and took a cut before the ministers this time. The true definition of internecine war
You would have preferred to just been allowed to bring in all your own workers? Go back to where you came from.
Inside job