The 22-year-old alleged leader of a car theft gang who had just been released on bail was arrested by policemen in his mother’s house in Quezon City on Tuesday after he was linked to another case.
Chief Inspector Rodelio Marcelo of the Quezon City Police District’s Criminal Investigation and Detection Unit (CIDU) said that Edelberto Marteja, who reportedly leads the Marteja-Briones group, was arrested based on a warrant issued on December 1 by Judge Andres Bartolome Soriano of the Malolos Regional Trial Court Branch 13 in Bulacan province in connection with another car theft case.
He added that Marteja did not put up a fight when CIDU operatives went to his mother’s house in Barangay (village) Apolonio Samson, Quezon City, at 11 a.m. on Tuesday.
According to Marcelo, they decided to go to the area after they received information that Marteja would visit his mother at around that time.
Marteja faces several car theft and robbery cases before the Quezon City Prosecutor’s Office on top of separate charges of illegal possession of firearms and violation of the antifencing law, the police official said.
He and several other members of the gang were collared near a gasoline station at the corner of Roosevelt and Quezon Avenues in Quezon City by members of the QCPD anticar theft unit in August.
According to QCPD director Chief Superintendent George Regis, the group that operates in Metro Manila and the nearby regions of Central and Southern Luzon was responsible for at least 46 cases of car theft.