Insiders’ role eyed in Lepanto gold heist

La TRINIDAD, Benguet – Police are now looking into the possibility that insiders at the Lepanto Consolidated Mining Company (LCMC) colluded with the armed robbers, who carted away 21.8 kilos of gold from the mining firm last Saturday.

Benguet police director Senior Superintendent Conrado Minano said that while all angles are being investigated, they are now analyzing why company security guards were not able to react immediately after the incident.

Ski mask-wearing gunmen barged into the "usually well-secured" compound of the mines, the country’s biggest gold mining firm, in Mankayan town, killing four guards and an engineer.

The robbers, armed with high-powered guns, carted away about P14 million worth of gold bars.

The guards and the engineer were transporting the 21.8 kilos of gold in a van from a refinery to a vault in another building in the vast mining area when the robbers approached the vehicle and opened fire with assault rifles, Lepanto vice president for administration Florendo Fajilan said.

The heist occured on the eve of the 67th anniversary of the founding of Lepanto, a former copper-mining company which shifted to gold mining in 1997.

Minano disclosed that they are now focusing the probe on LCMC internal operations.

"Definitely, there was an insider," Minano said.