P1M jewelry, cash taken in pawnshop burglary

CEBU, Philippines - An estimated P1 million worth of pawned pieces of jewelry and cash were reported lost in a burglary at a pawnshop in Passi City, Iloilo Thursday evening.

Christine Factora, 30, of Dingle town in Iloilo, reported that the family-owned Christine and Grace Pawnshop at F. Palmares Street in Passi City was burglarized.

Factora said the pawnshop personnel at 6 a.m. found the belongings scattered around the floor, leading them to discover there was a burglary.

Factora told police investigators the pawnshop lost P6,700 in cash kept inside a drawer and pieces of jewelry placed inside a vault. The robbers also tried to open another jewelry vault but failed.

Superintendent Adrian Acollador, Passi City Police chief, said the police already secured the footage of the closed circuit television showing the break-in. “We are looking at two male suspects in their 30s,” he added.

The two burglars were however not identified because they used their shirts to cover their faces, as they entered the store, located at the lower ground floor of the two-storey commercial building.

The burglars entered several minutes past midnight yesterday by scaling the wall at the back portion of the building.

They then cut the iron chain that separated the iron grills leading to the back door of the pawnshop. They destroyed the padlock of the door and proceeded to the drawer, destroyed it and took the money there. They then destroyed the vault, where the pawned pieces of jewelry were kept.

Acollador said members of the Scene of the Crime Operations team were able to lift latent fingerprints inside the store. “But we feared that the crime scene was not preserved properly. It was already contaminated,” he said.

Acollador said the owner was a bit apprehensive in letting the SOCO team lift the fingerprints but investigators insisted.

As of this writing, the police have no leads yet on the identities of the burglars, but believed that the two have knowledge on where the valuables were kept before the burglary, Acollador added. (FREEMAN)