Pawnshop: Tellers rode in car prior to robbery

Security escorts accompanied three pawnshop employees when they withdrew cash from a nearby bank prior to the Dec. 9  robbery in Toledo City.

Manolatte Dinsay, legal counsel of M. Lhuiller’s Visayas and Mindanao operations, said the three employees rode a company vehicle after leaving the bank.

“They always ride on a company vehicle,” he said.

Dinsay said  their security policies were in place and the company  saw no need to ask for police escorts during the cash withdrawal.

In a separate phone interview, Insp. Bonifacio Lucerna, officer-in-charge of the Toledo City police said the bank where the pawnshop teller withdrew money was 150 meters away from the M. Lhuiller pawnshop.

Lucerna said residents in the area noticed that the manager  and their employees would just walk from the bank to the pawnshop.

“Nobody reported about the robbery to us. We just received a phone call from a concerned citizen. Nobody from M. Lhuiller called us,” Lucerna said.

He said the pawnshop branch manager Nerissa Ulgazan coordinated with the cops three days after the incident.

Lucerna said Ulgazan didn’t show police a copy of the withdrawal slip or a passbook bank statement that indicated that the amount stolen was  P2.5 million.

Pawnshop teller Domingo del Pilar was killed in the robbery.

Dinsay said M. Lhuillier  expects a “positive development” in the case after police shot dead a suspect in the pawnshop robbery.

Noel Anscar Zamora was shot in the right leg before he could aim his .45 pistol at a police asset during a buy-bust operation.

Dinsay said the police didn’t contact them about Zamora’s arrest, and they just learned it from  news reports.

“Internally, we’re doing our investigation. It’s SOP (standard operation procedure),” Dinsay said.

He said del Pilar was the first employee death for the company.

“After the incident, we told our employees to be more vigilant. They have been told so often. They have to be vigilant,” Dinsay said.

The arrest of two suspects Pableto “Pabling” Napoles and Tristan Purisima last Dec. 10 led authorities to Zamora.

Zamora was reportedly peddling drugs in sitio Luray 1, Poblacion in  Toledo City when police staged a buy-bust operation.