Police out to unmask Doce Pares ‘insiders’

Police investigators are coordinating with management of various banks to unmask the "insiders" who have been providing the Doce Pares robbery gang information on clients withdrawing large amounts of money from their establishments.

Chief Superintendent Oscar Valenzuela, director of the Eastern Police District (EPD), said there is a possibility that employees and security guards are working with the Doce Pares members.

"We are digging deeper into the case of the Doce Pares gang. All angles are being looked into, including the possibility that they have contacts inside banks," Valenzuela said.

At least four members of the gang — PO2 Allan Verania of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) and PO1 Candido Vallejo, PO1 Roger Villarente and PO1 Roel Palana of the District Mobile Force (DMF) of the EPD — are now in jail. Their alleged leader, a certain PO2 Joel Tapec, remains at large.

Valenzuela said the gang was the responsible for the slaying of one-year-old Erica Charlene Guevarra during a P100,000 robbery in Cainta, Rizal last Sept. 14; a robbery-holdup involving a certain Danilo Hernandez last Jan. 19 also in Cainta; a shooting incident in Marikina City last Aug. 15 that resulted in the killing of businessman Edward Young, 24, and his driver, Glen Magbanua, 47; the P300,000 payroll robbery involving Japanese businessman Kenichi Takahasi in Barangay Kapitolyo, Pasig City last June 15; and the P400,000 payroll robbery involving Fernando Siy, a vice president of a candy factory in Barangay Ugong last Aug. 27.

Valenzuela pointed out that when Takahasi was robbed, he had just withdrawn the payroll money from a bank in Makati City; Guevarra from a bank in Marikina City; Young from another bank in Marikina City and Siy from a bank in Barangay Kapitolyo.

Senior Superintendent Felipe Rojas Jr., intelligence chief of the National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO), said they are sure that somebody tipped off the Doce Pares gang about the large amount of cash the victims withdrew.

"But our investigation is not centered only on the security guards and bank employees, but also on bystanders near the establishments," Rojas said.

Meanwhile, Vallejo, and Palana were positively identified by couple Erick and Rosanna Guevarra as the ones who killed their daughter Erica.

During the preliminary investigation of the robbery with homicide and frustrated homicide case before the sala of Judge Teresito Andoy of the Cainta municipal trial court, two other witnesses pointed to the three policemen as among those who staged the robbery.

Andoy granted the prosecution’s request for the witnesses to hide their faces during the confrontation.