P40-M worth jewelries lost in Ozamis City mall heist

COTABATO CITY — Three men stole some P40 million worth of jewelry and money from a safety vault and a bank automated teller machine in a heist inside the Gaisano Mall in Ozamis City before dawn Monday, New Year’s Day.

In an initial report on Tuesday, the Ozamis City Police Office and the Misamis Occidental Provincial Police Office separately announced that the scheming robbers broke through the Oro Italia Fine Jewelry store in the mall by digging a tunnel from an open food store beside it, enabling them to enter the establishment.

The thieves took all the gold jewelry displayed in glass showcases and the cash in the safety vault of the store.

The management of the Oro Italia Fine Jewelry estimated that around P40 million worth of items and cash were taken away by three culprits whose identities local police probers are still trying to determine.

The suspects also destroyed an ATM machine of the Metrobank at one spot in the mall and took the money stored in it, according to the Ozamis CPO.

Investigators from the Ozamis City Police Office and intelligence agents from the Misamis Occidental PPO are reviewing security camera recordings collected from establishments in the Gaisano Mall as basis in identifying the three robbers for them to be charged with corresponding criminal cases.