Robbers take P6M in jewelry

More than P6 million worth of jewelry and an undetermined amount of cash were taken by three armed robbers noontime yesterday from a pawnshop owned by the Quisumbing family located along A.S. Fortuna St., Mandaue City.

The three men, who were armed with pistols, carted away mostly brandnew jewelry on display at the A.S. Fortuna branch of Exquisite Pawnshop and Jewelry Shop, said Ricardo Neal Quisumbing Alvarez, overall in-charge of the pawnshop's 41 branches in Visayas and Mindanao. He said that 90 percent of the jewelry that were taken are brand new while only about ten percent are 'rematado.'

Most of the stolen jewelry are set with class A diamonds and pure gold and one set alone costs more than P300,000.

Iylene Janiola, the cashier of the pawnshop, said that one of the robbers pretended to be a customer wanting to send money through Western Union, which is located inside the pawnshop.

The pawnshop is a sub-agent of Western Union.

The teary-eyed Janiola narrated to The Freeman at the Subangdaku Police Station that she was shocked after the robber, who pretended to be a customer, suddenly pointed gun at her and said "Kwarta, Kwarta, Kwarta!"

Janiola said that another robber then told her to hurriedly open the glass case containing the jewelry display.

The robbers then ordered the three personnel of the pawnshop and security guard Bugtai of Archangel Security Agency to lie prone on the floor then fled with the loot on board a motorcycle.

Janiola said, she immediately told the Bugtai to call the attention of other guards in the vicinity, but the guard, who appeared stunned by the robbery, did nothing.

Janiola suspected that the robbers might have been observing them since they knew that she held the keys.

She added that the robbers also threatened to kill her if she would not open the vault, where over a million worth of pawned jewelry were stored. Luckily she was able to convince the robbers that she is not the one in-charge of the vault and they left without opening it.

Alvarez said that this is the first time that their pawnshop has been robbed and was nevertheless glad to hear that none among his personnel were hurt.

Alvarez, who is a grandson of Norberto Quisumbing, the chairman of Norkis Group of Companies Inc., was dismayed upon knowing that the security guard at the pawnshop failed to do anything to foil the robbery.

The said pawnshop is one of the nine companies under the Norkis Group. Subangdaku Police station chief Allan Yap said that they will explore all angles in order to determine the identities of the robbers.