9 alleged pickpockets fall

Nine suspected pickpockets from Davao City and Metro Manila who came here during the Sinulog festivities not for the celebration but for the throng of unsuspecting people were arrested yesterday morning in two operations by Cebu City Police Office.

Police recovered from them 19 assorted cellphones and a digital camera.

Theft and Robbery Section chief, S/Insp. Alexis Relado and his deputy, Insp. Michael Anthony Bastes conducted the first operation in barangay Alaska-Mambaling after receiving information about the presence of suspicious men loitering in the area.

The police learned that they were from Davao City but what puzzled them was that they did not billet in a particular place in the city and did not bring any extra clothes even as they claimed they were here for the Sinulog festivities.

Police later identified them as Rick Alarin, 37, from barangay Sasa; Gerry dela Cerna, 26, of Barangay 28; Wilson Lacharon, 31, of barangay Sasa and Leo Villapaña, 37, from barangay Agdao, all in Davao City.

Bastes said during interrogation the suspects admitted being pickpockets and told the police where to find the other group that they had been working with since Friday.

TRS men accompanied by operatives of the Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Branch led by S/Insp. Gilbert Parilla went to a pension house in barangay Capitol Site and arrested another group composed of one man and four women from Metro Manila.

They were identified as Alex Lanusa, 36, from Pasay City; Jessica Garcia, 27, from Alabang, Muntinlupa City; Sheila Reyes, 30, of Tondo, Manila; Rowena Patere, 28, from Alabang and a 17-year-old pregnant girl, also from Alabang.

The police recovered assorted cellphones and a digital camera from their rented room.

Reyes admitted being a pickpocket and that she has been in jail for this several times already. She claimed to have tried selling fish in Tondo together with Patere but they ended up in jail for illegal vending.

"Kaya kami naging ganito kasi kahit ano naman ang gawin namin kahit legal hinuhuli parin kami, eh saan naman kami pupunta ano na lang ang gagawin namin may pinapakain akong limang anak," said Reyes who is a native of San Fernando, Pampanga.

Lanusa insists he is innocent and was with the 17-year-old girl here to watch the Sinulog, but he said he knows his friends Reyes, Patere and Garcia are pickpockets.

The 17-year-old girl said she does the laundry of the group for an unfixed amount of pay, she has a one-year-old son in Alabang tended by her mother.

Bastes dismissed the alibi of Lanusa saying the four men from Davao they earlier arrested told them that Lanusa is the leader of the group.

Relado is now waiting for complainants to come to their office to claim their cellphone and possibly file charges against the suspects.

Last weekend the TRS arrested ten persons from Leyte and Mindanao on suspicion of being pickpockets and because some of them had previous records for petty theft in Cebu City. - Edwin Ian Melecio/BRP