Rob suspect shadowed slain businesswoman

One of three motorcycle-riding robbers who killed a travel agency owner during a failed $60,000 robbery in Mandaluyong City last Oct. 28 was seen in a bank where the victim had withdrawn the money.

A closed circuit TV camera installed in a bank along Libertad street showed the suspect transacting business inside the bank, police said yesterday.

Mandaluyong City police chief Senior Superintendent Carlos de Sagun said they have witnesses who monitored one of the robbers conducting a transaction in the bank at the same time the victim, Ofelia Salamat, was withdrawing $60,000 for her travel agency.

“It seems that the suspects’ cover was to transact business at the bank but actually he’s conducting surveillance operations against their prospective victims, especially bank clients who withdrew large amount of money,” De Sagun said in an interview.

He noted that the branches of a certain bank provided chairs for clients waiting to be served by bank tellers, but bank client robbers take advantage of this provision.

“The security guard could not determine whether they are really bank clients or robbers posing as customers,” said de Sagun.

He admitted that they failed to identify the robber because he was not among the criminals in their rogues’ gallery.

He said they are coordinating with other police units in Metro Manila to identify the robbers in Salamat’s case.

Salamat, her husband Manuel Luiz Sazon, her mother and 15-year-old son were in a Mitsubishi Outlander when they stopped at a red light at the corner Salamat street and Shaw Bouleveard at about 1 p.m. last Oct. 28.

The foursome had just withdrawn $60,000 or roughly P3 million from the bank.

While waiting for the traffic light to turn green, two of the suspects, with drawn guns, alighted from the motorcycle and banged on the vehicle’s windows with their hanguns while signaling Sazon to open the doors.

One of the suspects fired a warning shot in the air, apparently to tell Sazon and his companions that they mean business.

However, Sazon maneuvered his vehicle into another lane and stepped on the gas.

The angry robbers opened fire at the vehicle, and one of the bullets hit Salamat in the back.

Sazon drove Salamat straight to the Cardinal Santos hospital in San Juan City where she died while being treated, De Sagun said.