Avoiding Helper-Lure Ambushes After Bank Withdrawals

A 76-year-old pensioner from Roystonia was targeted immediately after withdrawing TT$4,000 from a Couva bank in April 2026. Two women approached her in the car park and offered to escort her home; she accepted and entered their vehicle. The women drove her toward Southern Main Road before stopping at a predetermined location, where two men in a second vehicle approached, assaulted her, and stole her cash, phone, and bank cards. This coordinated operation — where accomplices posing as helpers gain the victim’s trust to enable an ambush by a separate group — represents a deliberate evolution of post-withdrawal targeting. The criminal network stages the approach as a social interaction specifically because victims, particularly elderly women, are conditioned to accept assistance from other women. The bank or ATM is only the start of the operation; the luring stage can occur at the machine, in the car park, or anywhere along the victim’s path home.

Steps to follow:

• Never accept a lift, escort, or offer of help from strangers immediately after visiting a bank or ATM, regardless of how friendly or well-intentioned they appear.
• If approached by strangers in or near a bank car park after a withdrawal, return inside the bank premises and wait for a family member or known driver to collect you.
• Arrange transport home before making significant withdrawals — have a known driver wait for you or call for a pick-up the moment you exit the bank, giving strangers no window to approach.
• Do not count or display your cash outside the bank building; complete all sorting at the teller or inside a private space before leaving.
• If you are elderly and making large withdrawals, ask a bank staff member to accompany you to your vehicle or a taxi stand; banks are generally cooperative with this request.
• If you realise you are in a vehicle being taken somewhere you did not agree to, make noise immediately — activate the horn, roll down a window, or call out to attract attention from people outside.