Nuns’ ex-driver nabbed in QC convent heist

A driver who used to work for a Quezon City convent was arrested after allegedly conniving with armed robbers who made off with the convent’s payroll money and other valuables worth around P500,000 on March 26.

Efren Padilla was arrested Friday night at a machine shop on Marcos Highway in Marikina City,  eight months after the Holy Tuesday robbery at the Convent of the Holy Spirit in Barangay Immaculate Conception.

A team from the Quezon City Police District’s (QCPD) Criminal Investigation and Detection Unit, led by SPO1 Kristo Romualdo, served an arrest warrant on Padilla, 41, who reportedly went into hiding for a few months in his hometown of Bugallon, Pangasinan province, right after the heist.

Judge Manuel Sta. Cruz of Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 226 ordered Padilla’s arrest on robbery charges and set bail at P100,000.

Around 2:15 p.m. of March 26, five armed men barged into the convent while some of the employees and nuns were counting payroll money earlier delivered by an armored van.

At gunpoint, the employees and the nuns were forced to hand over P417,934.43 from the payroll, other funds in pesos and foreign currencies, as well as two cell phones belonging to the accountants.

Prior to the heist, Padilla, then a stay-in driver, was seen talking to a man who police said turned out to be one of the robbers.

After the robbery, Padilla was held by the QCPD for questioning and was told that he would undergo a lie detector test.

But he left the convent the following night without any explanation and did not return. The police later received a tip that he was working at a machine shop in Marikina.