The employees of Players Casino in Oudenbosch are trying to pick up again after the violent robbery on Thursday evening. The six-strong team is shaken by the brutal threat of two of their employees with weapons. “Last week they tried to come in to rob the safe, but they failed. And now it’s still happening. Really, they don’t shrink from anything.”
When the two masked men raided the shop on the Varkensmarkt around closing time, all the customers had already left. “It was around one o’clock and my colleagues were just about to close when two men in balaclavas stormed in. One had a gun, the other a knife,” manager Marcel Koolen recalls.
“The female colleague was threatened with the knife and had to be taken downstairs. The other boy who was still working had a gun pointed at him,” says Koolen. The victims were forced to turn off the alarm and open the safe.
The manager was home at the time, but received a signal that the alarm at the casino had just been turned on and then immediately turned off. Then he knew something was seriously wrong.
“We have to pick up the thread again but this is hard, for everyone.”
Within minutes, the robbers were gone again, fleeing with an undisclosed amount of money. The female victim fell during the robbery and still has pain in her back. There is also the enormous mental impact. “It is shocking when you see the security images again. We have to pick up the thread again, but so much has happened. This hits everyone hard,” said an excited Koolen.
A week ago, unknown persons also tried to get away with the contents of the safe. “That was not successful at the time, and we immediately took extra safety measures,” says the manager.
“People can’t just come in after a certain time, but they have to ring the bell first, so we know who is at the door. But yesterday’s robbers struck after closing time, just as our employees wanted to leave the business.” He cannot say whether these are the same perpetrators. “The detectives are fully engaged in investigations.”
Also in April it was hit in Oudenbosch. Two robbers entered just before closing time and threatened customers and staff with a knife. They made off with a sum of money.
“This is one of the few places where there is still a lot of cash.”
Koolen does have an idea why casinos are a popular target. “This is one of the few places where there is still a lot of cash. For us it is reason to see if we can switch to a card system, so that no more cash is involved.”
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