Tabuk City pawnshop tunneled into

HARD LUCK PAWNSHOP. The first attempt in 2009 was foiled but a second attempt to tunnel into the Anytime Cash Pawnshop in Tabuk City was successful. In photo are policemen bringing out the digging instruments of the robbers on April 18, 2011.** Photo by Estanislao Albano, Jr.

TABUK CITY, Kalinga – Even criminal gangs live by the saying “If at first you don’t succeed, try and try again.”
Almost two years after the police thwarted an attempt to break into the Anytime Cash Sanglaaan pawnshop along Mayangao Street here, the establishment was ransacked last weekend.
The robbers gained entry into the pawnshop through a hole bored through the concrete floor from a meter-wide tunnel under the pawnshop coming from the drainage canal some three meters away.
Quoting Norilyn Tambogon, 33, and Bobby Cunanan, 34, branch head and assistant branch head of the pawnshop chain, respectively, the police said that the robbers carted away more or less P100,000.00 from the cashier’s table drawer and an Asus computer monitor.
The two who reported the robbery to the police minutes after they discovered it last Monday morning further informed that the robbers tried to open the vault with a bolt cutter but did not succeed.
Perhaps that’s what they will work harder on next time.
On the first week of June 2009, the local police foiled an attempt to tunnel into the pawnshop.
Acting on an intelligence that some people were digging a tunnel underneath unidentified business establishments along Mayangao Street from the nearby drainage canal, police investigators found a freshly dug tunnel underneath the pawnshop.
The police staked the pawnshop starting on June 3 but when the robbers did not return on June 8, they concluded that the gang may have caught wind that the police were aware of what they were up to and abandoned the planned heist.
The police exposed the aborted robbery attempt on June 8 by digging at the doorstep of the pawnshop in full public view. They recovered the following equipment from the tunnel: two shovels, one bolt cutter, one hydraulic jack, three improvised chisels, one insecticide spray and a black bag containing five plastic water containers and candies.
This time around, police investigators retrieved from the crime scene an array of digging and boring tools including five crowbars of various sizes, a short shovel, bolt cutter, haydraulic jack, sledge hammer, hand drill and a flashlight.
Investigator Aurelio Bitanga said that the robbers dug alongside the old tunnel which was plugged with gravel and boulders.
He also said that the pawnshop employees have not reported any missing jewelries pawned with the shop. **