Alarm greets robbers at the end of tunnel

CEBU, Philippines - It took two weeks for robbers to dig a 10-meter-long tunnel from their rented room in Barangay Lahug to a pawnshop a few doors away, but their plan to get to the vault yesterday morning was thwarted by an alarm system.

Police said members of the so-called “Acetylene Gang” rented a room near Gemmary Pawnshop and Jewelry, located along Gorordo Ave., Lahug earlier this month and started digging the tunnel in hopes of reaching the pawnshop’s vault.

SPO3 Armie Coloscos of the Investigation and Detective Management Branch, who was among those first to respond to the crime scene after the alarm went off around 10 a.m. yesterday, said the tunnel was about 10 to 15 meters long and a meter deep underground.

Aurora Gotingco, the owner of the house where the tunnel began, said a man who identified himself only as a certain “Johnny Lo” rented the room since January 6.   It was the only information he wrote in his supposed one-year contract there.

Gotingco told reporters that at first she was hesitant to let Lo rent the room because he seemed suspicious.

“Ako siya picture-an for record purposes ba, mao man na’y akong policy, nya dili siya magpa-picture. Picture-an na lang unta nako iyang ID (identification card), di sad siya,” she said.

Gotingco further said Lo paid her P30,000 as two months deposit and one month advance payment.

Ann Caryl Gotingco, 24, Aurora’s daughter, said they just thought of taking a photo of Lo some other time.

Caryl described the man to be chubby and dark-skinned. He spoke a dialect that sounded like Ilonggo and Chinese, she said.

Since Lo started renting the room, Caryl said he always covered the room with a black curtain. The man always played music too, she said.

The younger Gotingco further said that the room, including the mezzanine area above it, was empty before Lo rented it.

Coloscos said the robbers, believed to number four to five people, used a crowbar, a shovel and screwdrivers, among other items, in digging the tunnel. They used acetylene to cut the holes, Coloscos said.

They worked on tunnel for two weeks and waited for Sunday, when both the pawnshop and the Angel Sportswear store were closed. The tunnel emerged in the sportswear store where the robbers made a hole in the wall to get to the pawnshop next door.

Coloscos said the robbers were able to enter the pawnshop but fled when the pawnshop’s alarm system went off.

Amelita Letrero, the sportswear store caretaker, said she was in the house beside the store when policemen requested them to open the store yesterday morning.

She opened the store and was shocked to see the hole in the floor and in the wall. 

The pawnshop was eventually opened at 2 p.m., police found an acetylene tank there near the vault.

Mark Yu, the owner of the pawnshop, said the vault was also double-locked so it would be difficult to open it. Yu assured their clients that their vault is safe and acetylene-proof.

Nothing was reported missing from the sportswear store owned by Arlene Ponce. Their store normally closes at 11 p.m. and a woman sitting a few meters away from the Gotingco’s house the night before reported she saw a man pacing back and forth outside the room rented by Lo.

“Nagbarog siya sa gawas unya magsige ug tan-aw sa palibot. Mulakaw na man padung diri, mubalik na sad ngadto. Unya sige siya ug text-text,” she said.

She said she saw the man walk towards the area of JY Square and left the place around 7 a.m.

When police went to the rented room they found a blue mattress, which the robbers used to cover the hole, and the various digging tools.   Several sacks of dirt excavated from the tunnel were seen piled up at a corner and several bottles of mineral water were also scattered inside the room.

Last December 2010, an alarm system connected to a police station also foiled the burglary attempt of Prime Asia Pawnshop in Barangay Punta Princesa, Cebu City. The robbers also dug a hole in the wall to get to the pawnshop

IDMB chief, Chief Insp. Bonifacio Garciano, believed the robbers come from Luzon just like those that they have previously arrested. He said they are now making a cartographic sketch of “Lo” based on the description of the witnesses.  -/BRP (FREEMAN)