'3 Bundol Gang tipsters in hiding'

MANILA, Philippines - Three Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) security guards tagged by the National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO) as the Bundol Gang’s tipsters have gone into hiding, a source said yesterday.

The three security guards failed to report for work around three weeks ago following the arrest of Allan Aristorenas, the gang’s alleged leader, and three of his reported cohorts, according to a police official who requested anonymity.

Police teams from the NCRPO and the Parañaque City police are tracking the security guards down.

“We are now on a preemptive mode. We are gathering evidence against the security guards and the possible filing of cases against them,” the police official said.

The NCRPO and the Parañaque City police have the names of the three security guards, who are also neighbors of Aristorenas and his co-accused in Pasay City.

The police official said he saw the uniforms of the security guards at the time they arrested Aristorenas at his house at Pasay City last month but did not bother to check them because he had no idea then that they were working with the gang.

“We could not make public their names as yet as it might jeopardize ongoing operations to get them,” he said.

It was Aristorenas who revealed the identities of the security guards who acted as their lookouts at the NAIA, the official said.

The security guards would pretend to help arriving tourists or overseas Filipino workers carry their luggage to determine whether they are carrying a big amount of cash or important personal belongings.

According to Aristorenas, the gang members, on board a stolen vehicle, would position themselves at the Nayong Pilipino abdwait for a text message from the security guards on the type and plate numbers of their supposed targets’ cars.

The gang men would tail their target vehicle from the airport, bump (bundol in Filipino) it from behind and at gunpoint take over the wheel of the car and rob its occupants before dumping them.

Aristorenas and Robert Bonzon were arrested at their hideout along Maricaban and M. Reyes streets in Pasay City on Nov. 10. A day earlier, two other suspects, Felimon Borillo and Jeffrey Martinez, were nabbed after a brief chase in Parañaque City.

No knowledge

Meanwhile, Superintendent Remus Medina, head of the NCRPO’s regional police intelligence and operations unit (RPIOU) said he had no knowledge that a policeman was the ringleader of the group.

Medina said it was the Parañaque City police who interrogated Aristorenas and his cohorts.

The Parañaque City police said Aristorenas claimed that a certain Arnold, a policeman, was the one directing their operation.

Arnold and his right-hand man, a certain Carlo, are neighbors of the suspects along Eme de la Cruz street in Pasay City.

“I have no knowledge about the involvement of Arnold, the alleged cop, in the group’s illegal operation. I’m not privy to that because it is the Parañaque City police who subjected the group to a tactical interrogation,” said Medina.

Some of the gang’s recent victims are the brother-in-law of former presidential daughter Luli Arroyo and the niece of Commission on Elections commissioner Elias Yusoph, a Parañaque police official said.

Medina, however, claimed that Aristorenas and his gang have not yet owned up to the robberies.