By CRIS DIAZ
CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY: Six suspects were collared 24 hours after a jewelry store at Gaisano Mall in Ozamis City, was robbed of pieces of jewelry, reportedly valued at P 40 million on New Year’s Eve, a senior police officer said Wednesday.
P/Maj Joan Navarro, the spokesperson of the police regional command in Camp Alagar here, said the suspects were detained at the Ozamis Police Station, pending the filing of robbery charges.
Navarro, who did not identify the suspects, said the suspects gained entry by crawling in the drainage that passed below the mall’s food court where the suspects bore a hole through the concrete flooring.
She said that once inside, the suspects scooped all the jewelry displayed in a glass casing and proceeded to destroy the bank’s automatic teller machine (ATM) where the suspects also carted away an undetermined amount of cash.
According to Navarro, the actual value of the jewelries and the cash stolen in the ATM are still being determined although the amount of P 40 million remains to be validated. An initial police investigation disclosed that the suspects dug a tunnel on the ground where an entertainment fair (peryahan) operates adjacent to the mall toward a drainage that passes under the mall.
Navarro said that the mall robbery might have been planned along with the digging of the route through the existing tunnel. Navarro believed that the robbery was executed on New Year’s Eve when people are unmindful of the noises and pyrotechnic explosion.
She said one of the suspects was arrested in the peryahan, which led to the arrest of the five others, discount the possibility of an inside job. -0-
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