Friday, March 14, 2008 Bridge robbery bags found; shop workers back lie test
ITEMS stolen from pawnshop employees in a robbery in Lapu-Lapu City were recovered in Sibonga, Cebu early yesterday morning.
Four traveling bags believed to have contained assorted jewelry were found by the roadside at 3 a.m.
While the manhunt led authorities to Bohol and some Cebu towns, the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) stepped into the case as requested by Cebuana Lhuillier.
The pawnshop company lost an estimated P1 million worth of jewelry, which were bound for an auction in Cebu, during the robbery.
Regional Director Medardo de Lemos said the NBI is looking into the angle that an insider, either based here in Cebu City or in Davao, was involved in the heist, given how well-timed the attack was.
The bags recovered yesterday were immediately turned over to investigators of the Lapu-Lapu City Police Office.
Reenactment
A man aboard a blue sports utility vehicle reportedly dropped the bags off. Two of the bags were empty. The other two contained identification cards, automated teller machine cards, keys and personal items belonging to Nancy Llano and Arlene Lisondra, employees of Cebuana Lhuillier Pawnshop.
The bags had been slashed at the sides.
SPO1 Ramuel Banogon of the Sibonga Police Station said that a resident of Barangay Bahay, Sibonga noticed the blue SUV stop by the roadside near a river and drop the bags.
The man was wearing a dirty white T-shirt and a ski cap. The man reportedly got off the SUV, opened the door to the vehicle’s baggage compartment and dropped the bags.
The SUV then left, heading further south. The resident failed to get the vehicle’s plate number.
Acting Lapu-Lapu City Police Director Louie Oppus said they conducted a reenactment of the robbery yesterday and got a description of the robbers from the victims.
From their descriptions, a sketch of one of the robbers was made.
Lie detector
Yesterday’s manhunt for the armed robbers reached as far as the towns of Sibonga and Oslob in Cebu and Loon, Bohol, to no avail. Senior Insp. Conrado Manatad, the LLCPO police operations chief, led the search teams.
Bridge heist
Meanwhile, the NBI 7 will investigate Wednesday noon’s robbery at the Marcelo B. Fernan Bridge.
NBI 7 Director de Lemos said the management of Cebuana Lhuillier, represented by Openieto Ignacio, asked them for help.
De Lemos said they have asked the management to have employees Llano, Lisondra, Dandy Anunciado, Luz Legarte, security guard Eutemio Estoce and driver Jundel Sumalinog brought to NBI 7 for a polygraph examination.
“A lie detector test is not admissible in court but that’s a big help to law enforcement because it can give us leads,” de Lemos said.
De Lemos said their investigation might include other employees of Cebuana Lhuillier in Cebu City and even in Davao City. “If necessary, we will ask for assistance from our Davao City colleagues,” he said.
“The suspects knew specific details like the time and date of the flight and the route the victims would take,” he said.
Secrecy
The Lhuillier group of companies is willing to submit six workers of their Davao del Norte branches to a lie detector test, amid speculations that an insider was involved.
Corporate planning group head Marissa Ancog, however, said the transfer of jewelry from branches to regional offices is always done with tight security precautions. She said these are done on short notice and only a few people, mostly in management, know about it.
She said the company is also conducting its own investigation.
The jewelry was flown in from Davao City accompanied by four workers. They were fetched at the Mactan airport at 12:30 p.m. on Wednesday by a driver and security guard.
At the Marcelo Fernan Bridge, a car blocked their path and five men got off to rob them.
Oppus said the robbers must have followed the pawnshop employees from the airport.
When asked why they did not coordinate with police on the transfer of the jewelry, a Cebuana Lhuillier company official said it was their internal policy not to share information on jewelry transports with any other agencies, including the police.
Target
When asked about the latest of the three big robberies in Lapu-Lapu City so far this year, Oppus said he is beginning to suspect that someone wants to undermine his stint as the city’s police chief.
He said his absence in the three robberies could not have been just a coincidence.
“Naay gustong mo guba sa akoang pagka hepe aron mahawa ko dinhi. Naa man guy mga tawo siguro nga atong naligsan kay ilang binuhatan labag sa batas...and this is one of the angles we are looking into (Someone wants to undermine my stint as city police chief. I may have angered people in enforcing the law),” he said.
Oppus was in a command conference at the Cebu Provincial Police Office when the Mactan Rural Bank in Barangay Basak was robbed of P1.5 million on Jan. 18.
On Feb. 23, he was in Manila when a warehouse in Barangay Gun-ob lost P300,000 to robbers. Last Wednesday, he was attending a command conference at the Police Regional Office 7. (MEA/AIV/KNR)
