AS SEEN ON TV
Daring as daring can be
Shortly before Sunday noon my friend Profer called about hearing gunshots in Greenbelt 5 Makati. Profer, who was hearing mass at a nearby chapel with his wife and son hurriedly left with hordes of panicking shoppers. They abandoned their car and took a cab instead, which later proved to be a wise decision. The robbers escaped with vehicles waiting at the basement where Profer was parked. What if the gun fight continued there? Good, quick thinking Pro!
Minutes later I was anchoring news advisory on ABS-CBN to break the story. Fellow anchor Ricky Carandang was on the scene and by phone he reported that men in full commando uniform and armed with high powered firearms barged into a Rolex store and engages the police in a gunfight. The Rolex store is near pricey restos jampacked on a lunch time, payday weekend. Good thing no one else was hurt except for a gang member who was shot dead by cops who happened to be lunching nearby with Taguig Mayor Freddy Tinga.
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While this brazen heist pales in comparison to the RCBC Laguna robbery slash massacre where 9 bank employees were shot dead execution style or the Rizal Day LRT blasts that killed dozens, metro residents can’t stop talking about this particular crime ring which had the guts to invade a tightly guarded, CCTV riddled, high end shoppers’ hub such as Greenbelt 5.
For one, the suspects possessed the form of Hollywood’s Oceans Thirteen. This is totally uncharacteristic of Pinoy motorcycle-riding, “paltik-wielding” hold up men, clad in plain clothes and “chinelas”.
This particular group was “dressed to kill” and poised to deceive, which they succeeded in doing when the Ayala security guards (known for their trademark rigid body frisking and fussy bag searches) mistook them for bomb squad and let them in. They were also equipped with communication “hands free” gadgets and M203 grenade launchers, which seemed an over kill for a much simpler goal of stealing watches.
And this is not the first time a mall had been targeted by stealth thieves. Just a month ago, men in full battle gear also robbed a bank van in Quezon City’s Waltermart. A dozen other robbery incidents in Metro Manila recently are also believed to have been perpetrated by the same group, now identified by police as the Alvin Flores syndicate.
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Very little is known about the group except that it is believed to be headed by a former police officer who’s had some “elite counter terrorism training”, and that it is composed of splinter crime gangs from faraway Ozamis.
Not much progress with intel work on Alvin Flores although for the police, naming him is already something. At least Alvin Flores (even if generic like Juan Dela Cruz) is officially a name unlike past sloppy police work on car thieves they named “Valle Verde Guapings Syndicate” simply because it was composed of unidentified, good looking men from posh Valle Verde.
If the Alvin Flores Syndicate had existed for quite some time now, investigators should have accomplished significant profiling of its leaders, members and even benefactors. I bet Carlo Caparas can beat cops in whipping up (with admirable speed) a more detailed resume (complete with love interest) of its leader, whose life story is now a potential B movie blockbuster.
And where are they getting their firearms? Such high powered weapons cannot possibly be acquired on private capacity. Even if gun laws in the land are loose, no one can really purchase a grenade launcher off the rack of legit gun stores for just paint ball.
A syndicate owning up to a string of high profile metro crimes cannot operate without a safety net. There has to be a high-placed godfather directing the operation by remote control. He will subsequently bail them out of trouble if they get into one.
Impeccable planning is also required to pull off a broad daylight heist in the country’s central business district. From meticulous planning come leaks that should have reached law enforcers.
The fact that the Alvin Flores Syndicate “took everyone by surprise” spells plain intelligence failure.