Max Lee, a businessman, has lost over three billion shillings inside room 313 at Kololo courts hotel. Sources have intimated that Lee on Wednesday this week at around 6:30 pm carried money worth $800,000 which translates to more than three billion shillings in Uganda currency in a kaveera and kept it inside his hotel room 313.
Lee locked the money in a safe before he decided to go for jogging at at around 7 pm. He returned to the hotel at around 8:30 pm, took a shower and went back to do some work.
Sources say Lee decided to retire to his room at around 1:20am which had turned to Thursday morning. However, when he tried to open the door, he realized the lock was damaged and decided to inform a technician who came and repaired it.
“On entering the room, he found the said safe wide open and the money (800,000USD) all stolen. He then rushed to the CCTV cameras and saw two men who had rented room 310 one putting on a yellow shirt and the other putting on a white shirt breaking into his room 313 and parked the said money in two laptop bags before fleeing the scene,” sources said.
Armed with CCTV evidence of breaking into his room and theft of his money, Lee called the bigwigs he knows in security circles. Among the people he called was Commissioner of Police – CP Beata Chelimo, who also passed the information to Kampala metropolitan criminal investigations boss Bob Kagarura.
Kagarura also dispatched a team to probe the case of burglary and theft of money with the help of CCTV clips. However, by today evening, detectives were yet to apprehend anyone in regard to theft of Lee’s three billion shillings.
The case is being investigated under CRB: 860/2022 of Burglary and theft. “We have recorded statements from the victim and relevant witnesses. This scene was visited by SOCOs and Captain Namara. The incorporated joint team has now embarked on phone clustering and tracking of the bad guys,” sources said.
The team has also reviewed CCTV cameras though no headway has been made as you read this. Security say the delay in tracing for the culprits was affected by the fact that Lee took long to notice that his room had been broken into and the said money stolen.
Another loophole the investigators have found that was deliciously exploited by the robbers is the fact that Kololo courts has a heavy traffic of people because it’s a hotel and houses a gaming place as well.
“We have noticed that the suspects booked a room as guests and used fake identification cards from Kenya. But we are doing whatever is possible to have the suspects arrested and this money recovered,” sources added.