Serial petty thief hounds UP campuses
MANILA, Philippines — A suspected serial petty thief in the University of the Philippines (UP) campuses targeted at least three students last week, stealing their gadgets.
Another victim, a 19-year-old second-year business administration student from UP Diliman in Quezon City, contacted the Inquirer after reading the publication’s exclusive news story Thursday about a theft incident in the UP campus in Bonifacio Global City (BGC) in the city of Taguig.
READ: Lax security blamed in ‘first-ever’ theft at UP-BGC’s 9-year history
The theft in a UP Diliman library occurred Tuesday afternoon, according to the student, a day before a similar incident occurred in a UP-BGC study area on Wednesday afternoon.
“I actually experienced theft from the same person captured in the CCTV,” the student, who requested anonymity due to privacy concerns, told the Inquirer over the weekend.
The UP Diliman student shared another CCTV footage recorded last Tuesday that showed a lanky man wearing a black shirt bearing the image of NBA player Lamelo Ball while wearing glasses and a white face mask.
The man matched the suspect captured in the CCTV footage of UP-BGC last Wednesday, wearing similar items, even the black shirt with the NBA player’s face, but he wore a black face mask that time.
“I thought it happened the same day because he was wearing the same shirt,” the UP Diliman student said.
“It’s irritating, the audacity of this guy; he already did it in UP Diliman, then he did it once more in UP-BGC,” she said.
According to her, the apparent thief spent about 10 minutes in the library, rummaging through the bags in the room, taking another student’s laptop, then her iPad, which lay on the table.
The student said she had a grocery run, and she left her iPad there to have it fully charged before her evening classes so she could use it to take notes.
“It’s really common for us to leave our stuff in the library,” she said. “I’m not the only one who does that.”
The suspect took away her iPad worth at least P20,000.
Her iPad, like most Apple products, has a “Find My” feature that could show the location of a lost gadget.
She tagged the item as “lost,” so it had its Activation Lock turned on, rendering it useless. Furthermore, she said the item’s location was last spotted somewhere in Fairview village in Quezon City.
Local police then escorted her to the area indicated in the app, and it turned out to be a phone repair shop, which they confronted.
“The people there denied that it [the iPad] was brought to their shop,” she said.
The anti-fencing law penalizes the crime of fencing, defined as buying, selling, or dealing with stolen property.
“Until now, they’re still denying it,” she said, citing a later update from the police. “I am now losing hope.” /das/abc
