Five-minute robbery near police precinct

Four persons posing as customers robbed a forwarding company of P350,000 cash at its office near the Mandaue City police precinct in A. Soriano Avenue and J. Briones Street in barangay Looc, Mandaue City, at past 8 a.m. yesterday.

Insp. Ramil Morpos, theft and robbery section chief of the Mandaue City police, said three of the four robbers pretended to be customers when they entered American President Line (APL) Logistics Co.

With the other one acting as lookout, the men brandished their .45 pistols and declared a holdup.

They also made off with P6,500 in cash, cell phones and credit cards from two employees. The robbery took all of five minutes.

The robbers fled on board two motorcycles towards northbound Plaridel Street.

Morpos said the incident was not reported immediately since the security guard and a warehouse worker were tied up while six employees were frightened.

Taken from the crime scene were the remains of an improvised set of plastic handcuffs and two brown envelopes used by robbers to hide their ropes for tying the employees.

Senior Supt. Noel Gillamac, Mandaue City police chief, said two of the suspects identified as as Reynante Paracuelles Roquero alias “Yukyuk” and Claudio Castillo alias Ompong came from Ozamiz City.

Gillamac said the faces of the suspects were shown in the company’s security TV cameras and confirmed by the victims and their intelligence section.

The P350,000 was the company’s cash proceeds to be deposited that day.

Insp. Michael Anthony Bastes of the Investigation and Detection Management Branch said a traffic aide reported the robbery to them.

One of the robbers pistol-whipped 27-year-old security guard Genesis Maru on the head.

Bastes said APL’s Cagayan de Oro branch was also robbed of P3.5 million of its proceeds last Jan. 11.

He said they are still verifying if the Mandaue branch robbery was an inside job.