QC case offers warning on hiring family drivers

CUADRA

QUEZON CITY, Philippines –The police on Wednesday recovered a car stolen from a Quezon City resident allegedly by his former family driver three weeks after the latter was fired.

The dismissed family driver remained at large but another man caught driving the vehicle is now in the custody of the Quezon City Police District. The QCPD is  linking both men to crime theft syndicates.

Felito Cuadra, 34, was arrested in Barangay Baesa while driving a black Mitsubishi Lancer (XFH 382) belonging to Arturo Cruz, 50, of Barangay Veterans Village.

Cruz told the QCPD that the car was taken by his former driver, Ronald Nunag, who on February 2 barged into Cruz’s residence and also made off with a TV set and a camera.

In a press conference Friday, QCPD director Chief Supt. Richard Albano said Cuadra was a suspected member of the Mac Lester Reyes car theft group while Nunag, still the subject of a police manhunt, led his own gang.

According to Albano, members of Nunag’s group would apply as family drivers and, once hired, run off with their employers’ vehicles. The stolen vehicles would then be passed on to the Mac Lester Reyes gang, which would dismantle the cars and sell the parts.

“We must be more careful of those we intend to hire,” the officials said. “These suspects would first apply as family drivers to earn the trust of their would-be victims. After some time, they would strike and steal the cars.”

The QCPD’s anticar theft section received a tip that a stolen car was spotted on Sitio Mendez Street in Barangay Baesa on Wednesday. The car turned out to be Cruz’s missing Lancer, with Cuadra behind the wheel.

When questioned, Cuadra could not present documents proving his ownership of the vehicle, which was already without its backseat when recovered.

QCPD deputy director for administration Senior Supt. Joel Pagdilao said the Mac Lester Reyes gang was believed to be behind three other car theft cases in Quezon City last weekend, involving a Nissan Urvan, a Honda Civic and a Mitsubishi Strada. They were all taken while parked outside their owners’ homes.

The gang was named after a car theft ring leader who police said employed his own son to pull off major heists. In August 2011, the QCPD arrested the son, Mark Joseph Lester, for the theft of the Toyota Fortuner of then Social Security System Vice President Alfredo Villasanta. However, the father, Mark “Mac” Reyes, escaped with the vehicle.