“Old man” leads bank robbery

Sto. Tomas, Batangas –The old man carrying a brown envelope that the employees of the Rural Bank of Lobo in this town thought was one of their clients turned out to be the leader of two armed men who robbed the bank, locked the bank’s personnel and two clients inside the vault, and ran off with P500,000.
     This was how the bank staff described to the police how they were robbed on May 12 at 11:45 a.m., minutes after they were freed from the concrete vault room that the responding police officers had to open with a sledge hammer to let the air in and prevent the victims from being suffocated.
     It took the police an hour to bore an 8-inch hole at the left side of the concrete vault room.
     According to the police’s investigation, the suspects, led by the one who masqueraded as an old man holding a brown envelop, posed as a client and once inside the bank announced the holdup.
     The suspects immediately scooped up the cash from the drawer of bank cashier Catherine Salubre and headed for the vault room to get the money amounting to P496,238. They also took six mobile phones from the victims and herded them inside the vault.
     The suspects fled on board a skyblue Hyundai Grace Van of unknown plate number towards Tanauan City.             
      Locked up inside the vault were bank manager Renato Lubid, Salubre,  security guard Efren Basila, bookkeepers Michelle Villaflores and Nancy Rosero, bank collector Diory Gravino and clients Angelina Gonzaga and Ma. Kristal Medel.
      Investigators from Sto. Tomas police station said that Basila, who was only a temporary security guard, had no issued firearm and that the bank’s closed-circuit television system was not functioning when the robbers struck.  According to Lubid, the CCTV was under repair.
       The Scene of the Crime Operation (SOCO) team from Regional Crime Laboratory Office who  assisted in the crime scene investigation recovered the brown envelope where they lifted the suspects’ prints. 
      With the suspects’ prints and composite sketches completed through the witnesses and victims’ accounts, the suspects were identified  as Ernesto Mejas, Juanito Saliva,  and Santie Panuelos, all residents of Brgy. 7, Tanauan City.
      The town’s police force is still conducting follow-up operation to catch the suspects and recover the loot. A case of robbery in band has already been filed against the suspects. (SLI)