NCRPO busts casino car theft gang

MANILA, Philippines - The National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO) said yesterday it busted a casino-based syndicate with the arrest of four of its alleged members and seizure of nine supposedly “stolen” vehicles.

Police blamed the operation of the “Talon” syndicate for the rise of car theft cases in Metro Manila and other areas of the country where casinos thrive.

NCRPO chief Director Roberto Rosales explained that the syndicate’s modus operandi is to buy brand-new cars through financing.

“Once they are losing heavily in the casinos, they would pawn the cars to loan sharks. They would then appear before police stations to declare that their vehicle was forcibly taken. And in the process they would collect insurance to recoup the money they lost,” said Rosales.

To evade the law, the syndicate would buy new license plates for the “loaned” vehicles with their contacts at the Land Transportation Office and sell them at a lower price.

But a buyer would be jailed once he renews the registration of the vehicle because it had been declared as stolen.

“Even if all suspected (car thieves and carjackers) are killed, the figure on car theft cases would not go down because of the continued operations of the Talon syndicate,” Rosales said.

The NCRPO chief posted his men at casinos in Pasay City and Parañaque City to look for vehicles being loaned by losing players, resulting in the arrests of former policeman Ricardo Guarino, 36; Christopher Pelingon, 35; Felicito Roda, 41, and Louie Dayon, 35, a casino financier.

Roda yielded a .45 caliber automatic pistol and Guarino a 9mm pistol and a MOD GT 380 pistol.

Recovered from the suspects were a Mercedes Benz (XLA-865), Toyota Corolla (TDA-270), Nissan Serena (XJV-424), Mitsubishi Eclipse (YCZ-535), Ford Escapade (NUO-365), Toyota Echo (WTL-471), Toyota Revo (MGM-585), Nissan X -Trail (ZAZ-340) and another Nissan X-Trail (ZHP–818).

Rosales said the arrest of the suspects was part of the NCRPO’s effort to curb car theft cases in the country following a raid at the compound of the Land Transportation Office (LTO) in Quezon City last July 7.

The NCRPO has arrested18 persons arrested in a series of raids that followed the LTO bust, including Manila policeman SPO3 Alfonso Nuevas and Caloocan policeman PO2 Rolando Manipolo, recovered 54 suspected stolen vehicles.

Since the LTO raid, Rosales said there has been a significant decrease in car theft cases in Metro Manila.