Resto gang strikes anew in San Juan

The Resto gang struck again in San Juan Saturday taking an undetermined amount of cash and jewelry from customers of a Chinese restaurant.

Chief Superintendent Rolando Sacramento, director of the Eastern Police District (EPD) said one of the seven suspects who stormed the Kamameshi Restaurant along Connecticut St., in Greenhills was identified through the police rogue gallery. Sacramento said the suspect was one of the arrested suspects in the series of robberies at restaurants in San Juan last year but was released by a prosecutor for unknown reasons.

The latest robbery came two days after eight robbers stormed the Outback Restaurant in Libis, Quezon City and robbed its customers of close to P500,000 in cash and jewelry.

According to Sacramento, a mobile patrol car of the Mandaluyong City police has just passed by the area when four of the suspects, two of them armed with M-16 armalite rifles, entered the restaurant at about 9:20 p.m. Saturday.

At gunpoint, the robbers ordered the customers to hand over their jewelry and wallets and took off on board a black gray Toyota Grandia (WSA 190). They escaped toward EDSA.

Sacramento and Metro Manila police chief Deputy Director General Reynaldo Velasco rushed to the area to supervise initial investigation of the incident.

The victims, Sacramento said, identified one of the suspects through five pictures presented to them of arrested Resto gang members.

"We are presently going after them," said Sacramento, noting that the incident has deeper motives because like in the Outback robbery, the robbers also did not take the contents of the restaurant’s cash register. – Non Alquitran