Thursday, August 04, 2005
Bank personnel aided robbers in P9.4M heist?
By Jovy S. Taghoy
CEBU CITY -- Police investigators in Bogo, Cebu are looking at a possible inside job in the P9.4-million robbery of the Land Bank of the Philippines (LBP) last Tuesday night.
Inspector Arturo Pacifico, Bogo police chief, said the robbers could not have known the bank was keeping such a huge amount if nobody from the bank tipped them off.
"Three or four persons could be involved. They had to have a contact person inside," Pacifico said.
Security guards Henry Cuerda, 35, and Rogelio Baterna, 44, and the five female employees who were in the bank when the heist took place will be subjected to a lie detector test, Pacifico said.
The police chief will send a letter today to the National Bureau of Investigation regional office to request the polygraph tests.
All suspects
The Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Bureau of the Cebu City Police Office is helping the Bogo Police Station in the investigation.
The LBP also announced yesterday that it is conducting a separate inquiry.
"They (employees), including me, are under investigation. All of us are suspects," said LBP Bogo branch manager Ramon Destajo (not Vestajo as earlier reported) in an interview with reporters at the Bogo Police Station Wednesday.
But he said he did not think the personnel would connive with robbers because they have been working in the bank since it opened in 1992.
Destajo said the LBP Central Office sent Colonel Ricardo Pasamba, the bank's physical security officer, to do the investigation.
Destajo assured their clients that the money they deposited last Tuesday was already credited to their accounts.
P9.4M payday
He made the statement in response to several text messages he received from clients worried about their money.
The P9,410,600 that the robbers took at 7:30 p.m. last Tuesday represented the deposits from six rural banks in Bogo in northern Cebu and individual clients.
At the Capitol, Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia ordered the provincial police to help "get to the bottom of this strange occurrence."
Destajo agreed that the guards committed a security lapse.
The guards, particularly Baterna, should have prioritized the bank's security, as it is not his responsibility to assist anyone who would ask for his help, he said.
Before the robbers managed to get inside the bank, a woman asked for Baterna's help in operating the automated teller machine just beside the main door.
Inside info?
Pacifico said he has basis to suspect that the robbery involved an inside job.
He cited the bank personnel's failure to press the alarm button that was connected to the police station, Baterna's failure to lock the main door and Cuerda's failure to help Baterna in securing the main door when the three armed men barged inside.
The bank personnel stayed beyond office hours because they needed to sort the bills to be placed in the vault, but Pacifico said securing the bank should have been given priority.
Based on witnesses' accounts, apart from the three armed men who got inside the bank, four persons served as lookouts.
It took the robbers 15 minutes to rob the bank. By 7:45 p.m., they were gone.
Pacifico said that 15 minutes would have been enough time for the police to stop the robbery. Had one of the workers pressed the alarm system, Pacifico was certain they would have caught up with the robbers.
Passed police
The robbers fled from the bank on P. Rodriguez St., Poblacion on a KMX green Kawasaki motorcycle, a Nissan Vanette and a tricycle.
The robbers even passed by the highway in front of the Bogo Police Station, about a kilometer from the bank, Pacifico said.
Around 5 p.m. last Tuesday, Pacifico said four men were reportedly checking out the bank.
One of them even inquired at the adjacent lodging house about rates because they wanted to return to Bogo next month.
The four men were seen again minutes before the heist and left shortly after the robbery.
Baterna, in an interview yesterday, admitted that he went out of the bank without locking the main door and without informing Cuerda to take the post, while he assisted the woman.
Struggle
Just as he was going back inside, two men pushed the door. He tried to resist, but was overpowered when another man joined the two.
Baterna said he failed to shout for help because all his energy and attention were on preventing the suspects from getting inside.
Baterna, who suffered a laceration in the right elbow, said a brief scuffle occurred when the suspects grappled for his .38 revolver.
Cuerda, in a separate interview, said he never noticed Baterna was already struggling to close the door, because he was busy assisting the bank personnel in sorting the bills and coins.
He said he also did not see the men trying to force their way inside the bank.
Cuerda said he failed to see the scuffle because he was far from the main door. He only realized they were being robbed when one of the men pointed a gun at him.
The guards are now in the custody of the police, pending the investigation. (With MBG/Sun.Star Cebu)
(August 4, 2005 issue)
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