EPD starts new probe of robbery

The Eastern Police District (EPD) would conduct a parallel investigation into the P18-million robbery at a foreign exchange shop inside a shopping mall in San Juan City last Dec. 1.

EPD director Chief Superintendent Leon Nilo de la Cruz ordered a separate probe following the continued refusal of the Sanry’s foreign exchange shop owner, Neri Sunga, 52, to cooperate with the San Juan City police in its investigation.

The San Juan City police investigators are demanding from Sunga a record of his financial transactions for the past several months but he refused citing security reasons.

De la Cruz tapped Superintendent Eduardo Villena, head of the EPD’s District Investigation and Detective Management Division (DIDMD) to conduct the separate probe into the robbery and determine whether it was an inside job or not.

“Villena is a lawyer and is in a better position to conduct the separate probe. He knows how to deal with Sunga for us to know the truth behind the robbery,” said De la Cruz.

De la Cruz directed Villena to know how many times Sunga’s foreign exchange shop was robbed in the past and what measures he had taken to prevent such incident from occurring again.

Reports reaching De la Cruz showed that Sunga’s brother who is a former policeman and his companion were accosted by the armed robbers right after they stepped out from a bank at the Greenhills shopping center where they withdrew millions of pesos.

Villena said he would also seek the cooperation of at least three employees of Sunga to agree to take lie detector tests. The three employees gave inconsistent statements to the San Juan City police investigators regarding how much money Sunga kept in his two vaults.

The thieves gained entrance at Sunga’s foreign exchange shop located at the ground floor of the Unimart shopping mall by detaching a galvanized iron sheet on the roof.

Police said the shopping mall is being guarded by at least 30 security guards at its 12 entry and exit points. However, the guards claimed they noticed nothing untoward at the time of the thievery believed to have occurred in the wee hours of Dec. 1.

The San Juan City police have taken the statements of Sunga’s five employees and a big number of security guards but nobody gave a credible lead to crack the case.

De la Cruz did not give any deadline for Villena and the San Juan City police to solve the P18-million robbery. – Non Alquitran