Pregnant ‘thief’ falls

A PREGNANT woman suspected to be behind the series of robbery incidents in Cagayan de Oro was arrested by police operatives on Wednesday morning.

Police identified the suspect as Liza (family name withheld), 33, married and reportedly has two addresses – at King Arthur in Puntod and at Zone 7 in Barangay Bulua.

Liza is reportedly five months pregnant.

Police Superintendent Danildo Tumanda, chief of Police Station 1 (PS1) in Divisoria, said Liza’s modus operandi is to rob students and teachers.

It was learned that the suspect had 11 robbery cases inside City Central School alone.

Police said Liza’s robbery scheme includes befriending people inside the school and borrowing their cellular phones after acting to have misplaced her own. When she succeeds, she runs away with the phone.

Tumanda said the suspect also gets inside classrooms and when she sees that the teachers are out, she takes their cellphones.

Her latest victim said Liza looked very “hapless since she was pregnant” so it was easy to yield to her request of borrowing the phone.

Alarmed over the incidents, the teachers made a sketch of the suspect’s face and reproduced leaflets supposedly to be posted within the school premises.

However, even before the suspect’s face was posted, she came back to the school on Wednesday at around 11 a.m. where she was immediately arrested.

Tumanda said they found out through background check that the suspect had already been arrested but was able to get out of prison.

He said Liza had also victimized a teacher in Macabalan Elementary School where she took the teacher’s bag containing laptop, jewelry, cellphone, P4,000 cash and other expensive valuables.

Tumanda said the suspect had also victimized a teacher and a student at Puerto Elementary School.

He said they traced the stolen valuables and found out that the suspect has been selling them at cheap prices.

Tumanda said Liza had also pawned some stolen items in different pawnshops in the city.

Police believed that the suspect already formed a group and taught the members her “mode of stealing.”

As of this posting Thursday, Tumanda said they have to release the suspect because “she was not caught in the act of stealing.”

However, he said the teachers whom she had victimized are mulling to file charges against her.