Burglars break into pawnshop through sewage pipe

MANILA, Philippines - These burglars combined diligence and precision when they broke into a pawnshop in Cubao, Quezon City by going through 400 meters of sewage pipe that led them right to their target, the pawnshop’s vault.

The trail the burglars followed started from a bus station on Aurora Boulevard and ended on Arayat street, where the De Luxe Pawnshop is located, said Chief Inspector Rodel Marcelo, head of the Quezon City Police District’s Criminal Investigation and Detection Unit (QCPD-CIDU).

In the shop, a hole four feet deep was discovered Monday morning, with the shop in disarray and the vault containing jewelry already open.

Senior Police Officer 4 Allan de la Cruz, of the QCPD-CIDU’s theft and robbery investigation section, said the burglars were so precise that the hole on the floor through which they managed to enter the shop from the sewage pipe was right next to the vault.

“They were apparently good at estimation. They seemed to know where exactly the vault was,” De la Cruz said in an interview.

The hole on the floor of the pawnshop led policemen to a manhole at a bus terminal along Aurora Boulevard, where, Marcelo believes, the burglars managed to sneak into amid the influx of passengers and buses during the weekend.

Along the pipe, policemen recovered six disposable lighters with flashlights that the still unidentified burglars apparently used to light up their path as they staged the burglary.

The sewage pipe was said to be wide enough to fit in two Asian utility vehicles at a time.

De la Cruz said the pawnshop was closed on Sunday afternoon and the break-in was discovered when two employees reported for work at around 9 a.m. the next day.

Right next to the destroyed vault were an abandoned acetylene torch and two empty acetylene tanks that the burglars used to break open the vault.

The pawnshop’s management has yet to provide the police an inventory of the stolen jewelry.