RC, Zesto Cola lose P5 M to robbers

Armed men posing as anti-narcotics agents staged a 30-minute robbery early morning yesterday and took away more than P5 million in cash from the warehouse of two soda companies in Quezon City.

Police are hunting down the 20 suspects. Some of them had their faces caught by the close-circuit television (CCTV) camera.

Authorities are eyeing an inside job in the robbery of the warehouse and remittance office of sister companies RC Cola and Zesto Cola in Sitio Gitna, Barangay Nagkaisang Nayon, Novaliches.

The suspects posed as agents of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) and carted away remittance money worth around P4.5 million for RC Cola and P1.4 million for Zesto Cola, said Superintendent Renato Valebia, commander of the Quezon City Police District-Station4.

According to Valebia, one of the suspects knocked on the gate of the warehouse past 2 a.m. yesterday and told the security guard on duty that they were PDEA agents conducting a buy-bust operation on the supposed drug-related activities in the warehouse.

The man disarmed the security guard and opened the gate to let three of the suspects’ four vehicles enter. The fourth car waited outside.

Armed men carrying handguns and long firearms emerged from the three vehicles and hogtied the employees at the warehouse, which operated 24 hours every day.

Some of them proceeded directly to the area where the three vaults were being kept, prompting police authorities to point to a possible inside job.

“I was talking to the owner and even the owner thinks there could be a tipster (from among the employees). The robbers knew exactly where the vaults were located,” Valebia told The STAR in an interview.

The armed men had difficulty dislodging the vaults even with the use of hammers and bolt cutters, making the heist drag on for 36 minutes, based on the footage of the CCTV camera.

The suspects brought with them an entire vault after spending a lot of time opening two bigger vaults, Valebia said.

Valebia said the suspects also took away the cellular phones of some of the employees and even hit two of the staff members with their firearms.

The suspects then sped toward the direction of either Caloocan or Valenzuela.

Sitio Gitna, where the warehouse is located, straddles the boundaries of Quezon City, Caloocan and Valenzuela.

According to Valebia, no one was able to take note of the license plates of the three vehicles that entered the warehouse. However, a bystander outside was able to take note of the license plate of the fourth car but only the numbers “229.”

Valebia said they are relying on the footage caught by the CCTV camera, which showed that some of the suspects indeed wore jackets bearing the PDEA logo.