Marilao cops foil gold bar robbery attempt

Police arrested five of seven suspects in a P3.5 million gold bar robbery attempt in Marilao, Bulacan yesterday following a pursuit operations that extended from Bulacan to Tondo in Manila.

A Marilao, Bulacan patrol car reportedly pursued the fleeing suspects following a tip from an unidentified caller that several men, on board two stainless jeeps and a car, held up a silver gray L-300 van with license plate XAX-189 and commandeered it towards McArthur Highway in Bulacan.

Investigation showed that the van, owned by Jose Lim, 59, owner of Pearl jewelry store in Mandaluyong City, was on its way to the McArthur highway when stopped at about 11 a.m. by the suspects.

Armed with handguns, the suspects reportedly introduced themselves as policemen doing a legitimate operation.

Inside the van were Lim and four male employees of Pearl Jewelry store, who all came from a gold a melting plant in Bgy. Sta. Rosa 1, Marilao.

Three of the suspects allegedly boarded the van, brought out the gold bar inside the black traveling bag and at gunpoint ordered one of Lim’s men, Ernesto Morales, a retired cop, to transfer to one of their stainless jeeps.

Police Officer 1 Jun Bernardo of the Jose Abad Santos police station in Tondo, Manila said the Marilao patrol car pursued the suspects in their four-vehicle convoy, including the victim’s van all the way to Manila until they caught up with the suspects near the corner of R. Papa and Rizal Avenue in Tondo at about 12 noon.

The Marilao lawmen reportedly fired a warning shot to order the vehicles to stop but one of the stainless jeeps and the car with the stolen gold bar managed to escape.

The gunshots alerted Manila policemen at a nearby police sub-station, who then helped corner five of the suspects on board the remaining stainless jeep and the van.

The five robbers were identified as Alvino Pedria, 53, a retired cop; Peter Ronald Ignacio, 29; Ryan de Leon, 26; Ricardo Silan, 37; and Alejandro Abad, 45. Except for Pedria who is a resident of Manila, all the arrested suspects are from Cavite.

Silan and Ignacio also yielded National Bureau of Investigations (NBI) badges and identification cards but their authenticity are still being looked into.

The name of pursuing Bulacan cops were not immediately available. Follow-up operations to arrest the rest of the suspects and recover the gold bar are still ongoing. – Jose Aravilla