Downtown store losses cellphones to burglars

A cellular phone dealer inside a downtown commercial complex along Borromeo Street was found yesterday morning burglarized with several of the newly delivered high-end cellular phones taken away.

City Police's Crimes Against Property chief, Sr./Insp. Ambrosio Ibones, yesterday said the burglary could have taken place while the store was closed Tuesday evening or before it opened yesterday morning.

Ibones said the burglars passed through the Borromeo Arcade's galvanized iron roofing to get inside the Aerophone Cellshop where the newly delivered expensive cellular phones from a supplier were stacked.

The store personnel said they were supposed to put the cellular phones inside a vault before they closed the store Tuesday but they failed to do so because they still had to inspect the items.

Ibones said the police still have to determine the total worth of phones the burglars got from Aerophone. He said the store itself has no security guards while the entire arcade building has only one guard.

Meanwhile in another burglary of PryceGas Inc. in Sogod town Sunday, the town police was able to arrest the suspected burglar, identified as 27-year-old Jonel Siclot, the firm's maintenance painter.

Investigators, led by SPO1 Elvis Archie, said the suspect scaled up the concrete fence of the firm's plant, got through the back door of the administration building by destroying the lock, and ransacked the office drawers and cabinets.

Prycegas cashier and accounting clerk Carlos Cocharo told the police that the suspect stole P6,000 cash and P210,000 worth of post-dated checks.

Responding policemen recovered from the crime scene the short pants worn and carelessly left behind by Siclot, resulting to his subsequent arrest.

Siclot, a resident of the town, is now detained at the police stockade awaiting the filing of charges against him.

Roger Gomez, the administration head of the plant, went to the police station yesterday but refused to comment on the incident saying he is also conducting an investigation about it. - Flor Z. Perolina and Norvie S. Misa