QCPD warns of car thieves’ sell-steal scheme

MANILA, Philippines - Investigators at the Quezon City Police District (QCPD) are looking into a new scheme employed by car thieves: selling secondhand cars then stealing them from the buyers.

The scheme was discovered following the arrest of 19-year-old Mark Joseph Reyes last week after he was caught with a stolen Honda Civic, QCPD director Chief Superintendent Richard Albano said. The Civic was earlier sold to Gatsby Fay Balanay, 27, of Sampaloc, Manila.

Albano noted that a week before it was stolen, Balanay bought the car to be sold in her buy-and-sell business. She said she had already sold the car but before the new owner could get it, the Civic was stolen.

QCPD deputy director for administration Senior Superintendent Joel Pagdilao said Balanay told police she overheard the seller and his companions saying, “Patay tayo, meron pala CCTV (We’re in trouble. There’s CCTV).” They were apparently referring to her home’s closed-circuit television cameras.

Pagdilao said they are investigating the identities of those who sold the sedan to Balanay.

Balanay recognized her car when she passed by an auto shop at the corner of Cuenco and Banawe streets in Quezon City on Sept. 5, said Superintendent Osmundo de Guzman, commander of the QCPD Station 1.

The car, instead of carrying license plate WCG-898, had another plate – WRK-718 – that belonged to a car of the same model, said Chief Inspector Rolando Lorenzo Jr., head of the QCPD’s anti-car theft unit.

Family history

Reyes and his father, Mark Lester, figured in past car thefts.

Albano said Mark Joseph was just 16 years old when he and his mother, Jasmin, were arrested after Mark Lester and his group allegedly stole in 2011 a black Toyota Fortuner of Social Security System vice president Alfredo Villasanta in Quezon City.

Albano said Mark Joseph and a certain Christopher Ducot were also identified as the same men who reportedly posed as anti-drug agents and carjacked the white Ford Escape of Roey Frilles in Cubao on May 30.