Pawnshop heist leader evading prison since ’02
One of the leaders of a robbery group, whose operation targeting a Quezon City pawnshop was foiled last week, has been evading imprisonment for the past 12 years, police said.
Elmo Bustarde, 35, who had been using at least two aliases, is the subject of an arrest warrant issued by a court in Baguio City in 2002, according to the Quezon City Police District.
A miner, Bustarde was one of what the QCPD called the “seven dwarves” who were captured early Tuesday in the act of digging a hole leading to a pawnshop on Villongco Street, Barangay Commonwealth. Also arrested was a woman the police called the “Snow White” of the eight-member gang.
Insp. Alan de la Cruz, theft and robbery section chief of the QCPD’s Criminal Investigation and Detection Unit, said the January 2002 warrant issued by the Baguio Regional Trial Court-Branch 6 showed that Bustarde had also been using the names Jimmy Patog and Trinity Batawang Pespes.
The man was convicted also for a pawnshop robbery, according to the warrant which ordered him to start serving his prison sentence. The length of the prison term was not indicated in the document obtained by the QCPD.
Bustarde was arrested with cohorts Cecile Ibañez, Ortiz Latungan, Eric Secyang, Arthur Bino, Laurence Doyau, Tarex Tayaban and Ruben Sebnagen as they were preparing to break into the Ochoa Realica pawnshop through a tunnel.
Police said he was captured as he was climbing out of a hole dug inside an apartment unit he rented for the group about 20 to 25 meters from the pawnshop. His partners were then taking a rest when the arresting team moved in.
Seized from the suspects were two hand grenades, a hydraulic jack, two hand drills, two crowbars, a head lamp, a liquefied petroleum gas tank with burner, and portable electric fan with lamp.
The QCPD said the group was believed to be behind four more pawnshop robberies—one in Taytay, Rizal province, and three also in Quezon City.
