Police warned motorists to beware of a robbery gang whose modus operandi is to climb on board delivery trucks that are stalled in traffic and steal their cargoes.
The police arrested one of the gang members in Sta. Cruz, Manila while robbing a delivery van in the middle of a busy street.
The three-man rob gang usually wait for their prey on busy intersections at night, then they pick a stalled truck and forcibly open the back door of the delivery vehicles and then take its cargo.
Senior Inspector Rene de Jesus, chief of the District Detective Beat Patrol Unit of the Manila Police District, said the police got reports of rampant robberies of delivery trucks.
De Jesus deployed plainclothes operatives in traffic-prone areas in Manila specially when darkness sets in.
The scheme paid off when police caught in the act the gang members after robbing the delivery van of a province-bound trader in Sta. Cruz, Manila following a brief chase.
Inspector Carol Macawile said an Isuzu van with licensed plates BCK-848 was stalled in traffic along Abad Santos street in Tondo at around 7:30 p.m.
Unknown to the driver, the suspects were able to detach the back window glass of the vehicle where one of them passed to enter the van. Then he passed several bundles of denim pants from the vehicle to the other suspects waiting outside.
The gang had already taken out several pants when the driver noticed the ongoing robbery through his side mirror. The driver and the trader ran after the suspects and a passing police patrol car nabbed one of the suspects who was identified as Narding Roxas, 50, of Tondo, while his companions escaped with the loot.
Trader Jimmy Nanglihan, of Ifugao province, told De Jesus that his cargo was intended for distribution in the northern provinces.
The suspect is now undergoing tactical interrogation to determine the whereabouts of his companions.