Japanese trader claims she lost P20 M to robbers

A Japanese businesswoman has claimed that she was robbed of an estimated P20 million in cash and valuables by five men along EDSA in Makati City.

PO2 Ricky Corpuz identified the victim as Keiko Kimura, 51, married, a Japanese national and owner of JEMMAR Placement and Promotion Inc. in Makati City.

The incident took place last Monday and was handled by the Southern Police District (SPD) office in Taguig which accepted the complaint.

The case was referred to the Makati City police yesterday for further investigation. Based on the report of the SPD, Kimura along with her assistant Takashige Sugiyama and driver Andres Tatel reported the robbery.

According to the complainants, the incident took place at around 2:30 p.m. last Monday along the northbound lane of EDSA under the Magallanes Interchange while they were on board an L-300 van.

Kimura had just arrived from Japan and was on her way to her office in Makati City when a man clad in police uniform stepped out on the road and directed the driver to pull over.

After pulling over, the "policeman" approached the van and asked Tatel to hand over his driver’s license.

While Tatel was pulling out his license, the suspect suddenly held the driver and opened the door. Four other men armed with pistols emerged from behind the "policeman" and ordered Tatel and Sugiyama to step down from the front seats of the van.

Tatel and Sugiyama were then loaded into the back seat of the van and were handcuffed together with Kimura.

The suspects drove the vehicle on the South Superhighway and near a Shell gasoline station, all five men got off taking with them the two pieces of luggage belonging to Kimura.

Kimura made an inventory of the contents of her baggage and claimed that she lost millions in cash, jewelry and other valuables.

In her statement to the police, Kimura claimed she lost $21,000 and ¥16 million in cash along with nine pieces of expensive jewelry, two wristwatches, signature bags, wallets and sunglasses, two mobile phones and her Japanese passport.

The valuables lost were valued at around P12.78 million while the cash was pegged at P7.2 million using the prevailing foreign currency exchange rates.

During the investigation at the SPD, Tatel identified two of the five suspects from the file photos of the SPD of previously arrested members of the notorious Mariposa Gang.

Tatel pointed to Ariel Lingayu and Dennis Latayan, both members of the Mariposa Gang whose activity centers on bank, bus and highway robberies.

However, investigators of the Makati City police expressed doubts about the identification of the suspects because the photographs shown to Tatel were almost eight years old and changes in the features of the suspects most probably would have taken place already.

They are also looking into an inside job where Tatel and Sugiyama are suspects. It was revealed that the airport authorities could have also been involved by tipping off the suspects about the arrival of the rich Japanese woman.

This is the fourth time that Kimura has visited the country and on all three previous occasions she stayed for only a week.

Kimura was also said to have always carried large sums of cash as she shunned the idea of using the banks to transfer her money from Japan to the Philippines.