Rob gang preying on Edsa buses busted

Three bus drivers and a conductor were found to be moonlighting as robbers of passenger buses plying Edsa following their arrest on Saturday night in Bulacan province.

Chief Insp. Rodelio Marcelo, head of the Quezon City Police District’s Criminal Investigation and Detection Unit, identified the suspects as bus drivers Roger Alaraz, Jeffrey Reyes, Bobby Bondoc and bus conductor Aquilino Soriano. Also arrested was Ariel Adrales, a taxi driver.

According to Marcelo, the five were members of a gang which connived with bus drivers in robbing their passengers.

He added that the suspects were arrested after several bus passengers complained about Bondoc, the driver of a Malanday Metro Link bus (TWJ 728), which was robbed at the corner of Edsa and Quezon Avenue on Saturday.

The passengers told the police that Bondoc was in cahoots with the holdup men who boarded the bus and took their valuables. This prompted police operatives to arrest Bondoc who told them of his cohorts’ whereabouts.

Marcelo said that when his men raided the gang’s safe house at Phase 1, Lot 49, in Northville, Meycauayan, Bulacan, they found Adrales, Alaraz, Soriano and Reyes in the middle of a drug session.

Authorities later found out that after the gang robbed Bondoc’s passengers, they transferred to a Cher Transport Inc. bus (TYW 957) whose passengers were also divested of their valuables.

The robbers then escaped on their getaway vehicle, a Diane and Kelsey taxi (TXF 806), driven by Adrales.

Found in the group’s safe house were drug paraphernalia, cell phones, wrist watches, shoulder bags, backpacks, wallets and identification cards believed to belong to their victims in addition to a hand grenade and three .38-caliber  revolvers.