Mall robbers’ gambling gave them away, says prober

To avoid arousing suspicion over the huge amounts of money they were flashing to people during their frequent gambling sessions, one of the two suspects in the Robinsons Galleria mall robbery had spread the story that he recently won the jackpot in a lotto draw.

A police source told the Inquirer that this was the explanation given by Willy Enriquez, who was arrested by the police along with Ireneo de la Cruz on Monday, to the relatives of his live-in partner, Genalyn Casumpag, in Iloilo province.

Enriquez and De la Cruz had fled to Iloilo with Casumpag after the March 29 mall robbery which left a security guard dead and six other people injured.

The cover story, however, failed to convince some people who reported the two men’s whereabouts to authorities, the source said.

Enriquez and De la Cruz were arrested as they were about to leave for Bacolod City. They were on their way to fetch Casumpag and her daughter when a joint team from the Quezon City Police District (QCPD) and Iloilo police caught up with them.

They were later positively identified by witnesses as among the six men who robbed a bank teller who was about to deliver money to a foreign exchange shop inside Robinsons Galleria.

According to the source, the pair had decided to leave the province because they sensed that the police were hot on their trail.

Chief Supt. Mario de la Vega, QCPD director, said that Enriquez and De la Cruz would initially be charged with possession of illegal firearms before the Department of Justice.

Charges of robbery with homicide are also being prepared against the pair for their alleged involvement in the mall robbery.

De la Vega said that the two men yielded a .45-caliber pistol and a .38-caliber revolver during their arrest. Both guns are undergoing ballistic tests to determine if they were also used in other robberies.

Records showed that Enriquez has a pending case for robbery in band for his alleged involvement in a heist at Metropoint mall in Pasay City two years ago. Witnesses had tagged him as one of the five men who held up three employees of a moneychanger’s shop who were about to deliver P7 million to another shop inside the establishment.

“The modus operandi and the target were the same but we still will have to subject their weapons to ballistics tests and cross matching,” De la Vega said.