Cops urge QC mall to be strict about bag checks

MANILA, Philippines - The Quezon City Police District (QCPD) is calling on the management of Robinson’s Galleria to strictly enforce the checking of mall-goers and their belongings, pointing to a lapse in the security that allowed robbers to smuggle guns into the mall, leading to a violent heist in February.

QCPD officials, led by Chief Superintendent Mario de la Vega, met with mall representatives on Tuesday and Wednesday to discuss security arrangements in the shopping center.

 “If this (checking of each person going inside the mall) was implemented, those armed men could not have smuggled their guns into the mall,” De la Vega told The STAR in an interview.

A band of robbers staged the heist on Feb. 29, taking money supposed to be delivered by bank personnel to a branch of a moneychanger shop in the mall.

Surveillance camera footage showed three of the robbers carried short firearms as they stormed out of the mall. On that day, bank personnel had made a first delivery worth P2 million to another branch of the same moneychanger shop in the mall.

At least six men were said to have staged the mall heist that claimed the life of a bank security guard and left six others wounded.

De la Vega said they also asked for more footage from other surveillance cameras in the mall to determine the identities of the other robbers. He said what they want was not just the footage on the day of the robbery itself but also the days before it.

“We could get clues on how the suspects planned the robbery. There must have been preparation on their part that allowed them to establish a pattern (that helped them staged the heist),” the QCPD director said.