Robinsons mall heist a P14M job

The six-man gang that pulled off the armed robbery at Robinsons Galleria in Quezon City last month took some P14 million in cold cash.

This detail emerged on Thursday as authorities filed charges of robbery with homicide and frustrated murder against two alleged members of the group who were arrested in Iloilo province on Monday night.

Chief Insp. Rodelio Marcelo, head of the Quezon City Police District Criminal Investigation and Detection Unit, gave the figure based on a statement from Security Bank, whose teller and security escorts were ambushed by the robbers on their way to the Sanry’s money changer shop inside the mall.

The P14-million loot, Marcelo said, was in the duffel bag taken by the gang after firing shots and killing one of the two guards.

The Quezon City prosecutors office recommended no bail at yesterday’s inquest proceedings against Willy Enriquez, 42, and Arenio  de la Cruz, 46 (not Ireneo as earlier reported).

Three witnesses, including a representative of Security Bank, were also presented during the inquest.

The charge also tagged one Roger Solapco and Alexander Montenegro as part of the robbery gang behind the March 29 heist.

Marcelo said that with the arrest of De la Cruz and Enriquez, “five more cases could be considered closed because evidence showed they were also involved” in past robberies.

He said the two suspects were also positively identified by witnesses in the previous cases, like in the P5-million robbery in Dasmariñas, Cavite, on Oct. 29, 2011.

In an interview before the inquest, Enriquez admitted his participation in a robbery that targeted another Sanry’s money changer shop in Pasay City in 2010, but denied involvement in the Robinsons incident and other cases.

“I know nothing about Robinsons. I was only involved in the one in Pasay,” Enriquez told the Inquirer at his detention cell in Camp Karingal.

He said he got P700,000 as his share from the P7-million loot in the Pasay job.