Quezon City Police District (QCPD) investigators have been looking into the possibility that the same set of thieves burglarized the houses of MWSS project management division manager Nestor Lualhati and water regulatory body employee Restituto Espejo.
Both the MWSS employees live at the La Mesa Heights Subdivision in Barangay (village) Lagro. In both burglaries, a black car was spotted by neighbors near the two houses.
The first break-in happened some time between 1 p.m. and 7 p.m. Saturday at Espejo’s home on Saint Anne Street, where the thieves stole a safety vault containing approximately P500,000 worth of jewelry and an undetermined amount of cash. Also stolen was a laptop computer worth P65,000.
Senior Police Officer 1 Jerald Alibin, of the QCPD Lagro station, said that the burglars apparently scaled a fence and destroyed the padlock on the main door, which they forced open.
Alibin said that after looting the house, the thieves were seen by a neighbor fleeing on a black car.
Meanwhile, Lualhati lost close to P1.5 million worth of cash and jewelry and several documents inside a safety vault stolen by burglars from his home along Saint Mary Street. Also taken by the thieves were two laptop computers worth over P100,000.
SPO1 Cristituto Zaldarriaga, of the QCPD Criminal Investigation and Detection Unit (CIDU), said that the break-in might have happened some time between 2:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m., Saturday, while the house was left unattended by members of the Lualhati family who went to a funeral wake.
Zaldarriaga said that the burglary was discovered when two female relatives of the MWSS division manager went home at around 9:30 p.m. ahead of the grieving family and saw that both the gate and the main door to the house were already open.
The two women immediately called up Lualhati, who rushed home and found the door to the master bedroom jimmied open and a safety vault as well as two laptop computers missing. He immediately reported the burglary to the police.
Police Officer 3 Danilo Tuscano, of the QCPD Lagro station, said that two neighbors claimed to have seen a white van parked in front of the Lualhatis’ home at around 3 p.m. They said that the three men got off the vehicle and entered the house.
According to Tuscano the neighbors also noticed a black car driving around the area and said that the occupants of the two vehicles appeared to know each other.
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