Con man victimizes 2 students

Two criminology students arrested for allegedly stealing a cellphone became victims of a new modus operandi of a cellphone con man.

Randy Baran, 22, of Antipolo City, and Michael de la Peña, 19, of Quezon City, both students of the Philippine College of Criminology, were first apprehended for being drunk and disorderly.

As they were being taken to a police precinct, one Reynante Ornopia, who introduced himself as a student of the University of Sto. Tomas, arrived and claimed that he was held up by the two of his cellphone.

Police said that due to the positive identification of a complainant, the two were charged with robbery at the Sampaloc police station.

De la Peña’s parents arrived yesterday and tried to settle with Ornopia amicably, who said he would drop the charges only if he recovers his cellphone.

De la Peña’s mother then took Ornopia to a mall and bought a Nokia 6210 cellphone worth P12,000 which Ornopia said was taken from him by the suspects.

However, when Ornopia got hold of the cellphone, De la Peña’s mother said he scampered away and lost himself in the crowd.

Investigators blamed De la Peña’s parents for acting on their own without the knowledge of the police.

De la Peña and Baran were ordered released by an inquest fiscal.

Meanwhile, Manila cops are complaining of the apathy of cell phone victims in pursuing charges against arrested snatchers, allowing them to go scot-free and waste the lawmen’s time and efforts.

"We have so many experiences with victims who are satisfied with retrieving their stolen cellphones and don’t care about the case," said SPO3 Gordius Alumbro of the Western Police District (WPD) Theft and Robbery Unit.

"If they were not interested in the first place, they should have told us so, so that we would not have wasted our time making those reports," he said.

The latest batch of snatching suspects was released by the WPD yesterday when their Adamson University student victim opted not to pursue his complaint after recovering his cellphone.

The two suspects were arrested after a passing mobile patrol car saw them in a tug-of-war with the victim for his bag containing the cellphone.

"What can we do, we have no choice but to make the release. Let us just hope they (suspects) do not go out snatching again, but this time, a lot smarter about not getting caught," he said.

In the last two years that the WPD theft and robbery unit has been receiving complaints of cellphone snatching, eight out of 10 victims do not press charges. The two who pursue their complaints are usually those who do not recover their cellphones. – Nestor Etolle and Jose Aravilla