A janitor was arrested by Balamban police after he allegedly stole a total of P80, 000 cash from different tenants who occupied the ground floor of a mall in the midwestern Cebu town. | Contributed Photo
CEBU CITY, Philippines — Molin Secretaria was in dire need of money to spend for the hospitalization of his two-year-old twins, a boy and a girl, who had been suffering from fever.
Left with no other choice, Secretaria, 27, broke into different food stalls and a money changing shop that were located on the ground floor of the Gaisano Grand Mall in Balamban town at around 10 p.m. on Sunday, October 27, 2019, or an hour after the mall closed for the day.
The robbery was only discovered when the mall opened this morning, October 28, says Police Major Christian Torres, chief of the Balamban Police Station.
Mall tenants saw that their cash drawers were forced open while the money inside had already gone missing.
Torres said that Secretaria took at least P80, 000 cash from the 13 mall tenants.
His crime was captured by Closed Circuit Televisions (CCTVs) that were mounted in various parts of the mall.
Torres said that Secretaria, a mall janitor for two years, was immediately taken into custody by the mall’s security personnel when he reported for work past 7 a.m. today supposedly for questioning. But when refused to say anything, it was then that the mall management decided to call for police assistance.
A mall tenant, Torres said, visited their police station at about 12:30 p.m. today to report the robbery.
Torres said that the mall’s CCTV recordings showed a man who was wearing a mask while he visited the different stalls and food stores that were located on the mall’s ground floor. The suspect forced open cash drawers and took its contents.
The suspect, Torres said, had the same built as Secretaria.
Left with no other choice, Secretaria was forced to admit the crime. He also told police that he hid the backpack which contained the money in a portion of their house in Barangay Biasong.
Torres said they accompanied Secretaria to his home to retrieve the money.
He said that the suspect is now detained at the Balamban Police Station while they wait for the affected mall tenants to file robbery charges against him. / dcb