Rob gang preys on passengers inside NAIA Terminal 1

A robbery gang with members masquerading as security personnel is operating right inside Terminal 1 of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA), where they prey on Japanese passengers of the different international flights.

Lawyer Angelito Magno, head of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) at the NAIA, said that they were now coordinating with the Manila International Airport Authority’s Airport Police Department (APD) to identify and collar the suspects.

NBI agents are investigating the robbery that victimized Kasai Takao, a Japanese passenger of Northwest Airlines last Aug. 9.

Job Gayas, NBI-NAIA special investigator tasked by Magno to pursue the investigation, said Takao had just disembarked from Northwest Airlines Flight NW 19 from Narita, Japan last Wednesday and was walking along the west concourse at Terminal 1 when three men wearing beige-colored "barong" or formal polos stopped him for a body and baggage inspection.

The "security check" included an examination of his bag, where he had an envelope containing cash worth P50,000.

Takao said that after the security check, he went through the immigration and Customs gate.

Outside the terminal, he checked on his envelope containing the money. To his surprise, the envelope was missing from the bag.

"We are now coordinating with the APD because we need their help in solving this case," Gayas said.

For his part, MIAA General Manager Alfonso Cusi said he had ordered the MIAA-APD to help the NBI in the investigation.

" I have also ordered the APD to undertake its own investigation," Cusi told The STAR.

The airport chief said he had ordered a review of the closed circuit TV camera recordings that monitored the west concourse area last Aug. 9 to check the alleged robbery incident right inside the said terminal.

"We will get to the bottom of this incident," Cusi said.

Airport sources said that after the robbery on Takao last Aug. 9, another robbery targeting a Japanese passenger was said to have been perpetrated using the same modus operandi last Saturday.

The MIAA had gone on a heightened security alert mode last Thursday night after the foiling of a terror plot to blow up US-bound flights from London using liquid-based explosives.

The heightened alert also included a prohibition on liquids and gels and such items initially only on US bound flights.

Last Saturday, the Department of Transportation and Communication’s Office of Transportation Security widened the scope of the liquid and gel prohibition to all international and domestic flights coming in and going out of all the airports in the Philippines.