Bank alarm triggers SWAT response; roving teller group claims punching wrong ATM code

MANILA, Philippines—The last thing that Manila Police District operatives were expecting in responding to an alarm from a bank, a stone’s throw from the headquarters, was a civilian leisurely walking out of a bank with a valise full of money.

In full battle gear, members of the Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team and the Mobile Patrol Unit (MPU) rushed within minutes to the Bank of the Philippine Islands branch along United Nations Ave. in Ermita only to be told by an embarrassed group of security guards that they had mistakenly entered the wrong number combination into an automated teller machine they were supposed to load with cash.

But SWAT team leader Senior Inspector Joselito de Ocampo took no chances and hauled off five employees of the G4S security agency, disarming three of them.

“They had to be investigated further because we have to make sure that they were authorized to be inside the bank on a holiday and that they had a valid explanation as to how the bank alarm got tripped,” De Ocampo pointed out.

De Ocampo told the INQUIRER that when teams of the SWAT and the MPU arrived at around 9 a.m. Monday at the scene, approximately two blocks away from the MPD headquarters, they saw a man coming out of the doors of the bank carrying a valise.

They immediately accosted the man and asked him what he was doing inside the bank and then spotted security guards Dominador Billamia, Eleno Gayol and Juntie Sasor nearby.

Jerome Cruz Villegas told the SWAT team leader that he was the roving teller assigned to the G4S security agency armored van (body number 005) and that the valise was taken from the ATM booth that they had just loaded money into.

“I asked him why the bank alarm sounded and he said that they had initially punched the wrong combination,” De Ocampo told the INQUIRER, adding, “But we could not confirm any information they were telling us and decided to bring them in for questioning. We just had to be sure and we can‘t just take their word for it.”

“They told us that the bag they were carrying had money from the ATM but we cannot be sure of their claim. It could have come from the vault,” he pointed out.

The police teams brought in for investigation Villegas, Gayol, Sasor, armored van driver and security escort Billamia and ATM technician Napoleon Torres. The SWAT team seized the security guards’ firearms and turned them over to the theft and robbery section.

Senior Police Officer 2 Jerry Campo, case investigator, said that the group of security guards claimed they were on their fifth and last trip to load cash on the branches’ ATMs around Manila when the incident happened.

“They said that the alarm just accidentally tripped,” he pointed out.

An officer of the BPI cash division, Raquel Bautista, arrived at the unit to confirm that the group of G4S employees was authorized to load cash into the ATM even on a holiday.

But theft and robbery investigators will conduct further investigation into the incident.