'Tunnel robbers' hit Las Piñas pawnshop

MANILA, Philippines - A pawnshop in Barangay Pulang Lupa Dos, Las Piñas City lost P800,000 to at least four robbers who broke into the shop using a tunnel believed to have been dug eight months ago.

The heist was discovered yesterday morning, but according to Senior Inspector Macario Maylon, commander of Precinct 8, it is possible that the crime was carried out on Dec. 24.

Initial investigation showed that the robbers dug a tunnel to get into the Le An pawnshop along CAA Road. The robbers bored through the floor of one of the shop’s vaults.

When the hole was traced, the tunnel led to a house about 50 meters away. Found inside the house were metal drills, shovels, and sacks filled with dirt.

Maylon said police have been told by the house’s landlady that a group of men rented the bungalow-type last April for P11,000 a month. The men even gave the owner advance payment.

Maylon said when landlady asked the tenants why they rented the house, the latter replied: “For business use.”

“What puzzled her, however, was that the tenants never occupied the house or were hardly seen going in and out of it,” Maylon told The STAR.

But during those times, Maylon said, the neighborhood did not hear any suspicious sound coming from the house.

There were only some incidents that the neighbors saw two men going out of the house with filled sacks.

Senior Superintendent Romulo Sapitula said the incident is being investigated and probers are set to meet the pawnshop’s owners today.