Cops nab janitor for stealing P120T

Authorities arrested a 24-year-old janitor for stealing P120,000 from the cubicle of the lawyer of the Land Transportation and Franchising Regulatory Board-7 in the latter’s office at the North Reclamation Area on Thursday.

SPO4 Isagani Pugoy led a team of the Cebu City Police theft and robbery section in arresting Jelord Mansueto, the suspected theft, from his house at barangay Poblacion in Carmen.

The police also recovered the remaining money of P66,000 and some items that Mansueto had bought from the stolen money.

Mansueto surrendered to the police the money, the washing machine he bought for his wife, and the gold necklace he gave to his daughter.

TRS head, Sr. Insp. Michael Anthony Bastes, said that for humanitarian reasons they did not confiscate the food and the milk that Mansueto bought for his family.

Mansueto was taken to the Cebu City police headquarters for detention and the filing of charges against him.

The complainant, 48-year-old Evelyn Carmelita, a lawyer of LTFRB-7, told the police that the money could have been stolen from her cubicle between 3 p.m. of November 13 and the morning of November 14.

Police initially suspected Reynan Serno, a 23-year-old Boholano who replaced Mansueto as janitor when the latter did not report for work last November 13.

The TRS later found Serno “clean” and “has nothing to do with the stolen money,” but investigators learned that Mansueto went the LTFRB-7 office on early morning of November 14 then left hastily the place saying he was not feeling well at the time.

This prompted Bastes to order the team of Pugoy to trace Mansueto to his residence in Carmen where some neighbors noticed Mansueto with lots of money and have shopped for appliances and groceries.

Mansueto allegedly told his neighbors that he won the lotto but the police closed in on him as their suspect in the stealing of money from the LTFRB-7 lawyer’s office. – Edwin Ian Melecio/RAE