Exec loses half a million pesos to robbers

Three unidentified gunmen on board a motorcycle divested two shipping container yard personnel of over half a million pesos in a daring heist on a busy street Tuesday in Malabon, authorities reported yesterday.

Police Officer 2 Edsel de la Paz, the officer-on-case, said Arnel Santos, 42, operations manager and Eufracio Lasagas, 37, messenger, both of the NDC Terminal Inc. (NDCTI) in Dagat-Dagatan, Navotas, were waylaid at around 3:30 p.m. along Dr. Lascano street in Barangay Tugatog.

The two lost some P542,700 in cash to the gunmen. De la Paz said the money did not belong to the firm but to a top official.

Records showed Lasagas withdrew the amount at around 2:30 p.m. from a bank along M. H. del Pilar street in Barangay Tugatog.

Santos soon followed to fetch him with the company’s L-200 pick-up truck.

The two were traveling along Lascano when two of the gunmen blocked their way as they slowed down on an uphill section of the busy road.

A third gunman, who drove the motorcycle and acted as a lookout, waited by the roadside with the engine running.

One of the suspects waved his handgun and demanded the money. "I only want the money," he told Santos and Lasagas.

After taking the cash, the two ran to the waiting motorcycle and fled towards C-4 Road.

Witness Jessie Dizon, a local barangay traffic enforcer, earlier tailed the three suspects on his own motorcycle not knowing they were robbers.

When the gunmen blocked the victims in front of the Epifanio de los Santos High School, he said he thought it was a police buy-bust operation and stopped as traffic halted ahead of him.

The gunmen confronted Dizon, took his hand-held radio and his motorcycle’s ignition key. – With Pete Laude