How the BHF-Dagupan Robbery Turns Bloody

INSIDER’S ACCOUNT

By MORTZ C. ORTIGOZA

The main door of BHF &Jewelry Gemline

The Saturday May 31, 2014 BHF Jewelry & Gemline’s heist at AB Fernandez Dagupan City should be another chutzpah for the notorious Branzuela Ga’ga’ Gang (BGG) of Ozamis after the group led by a sacked member of the elite Army Special Forces hatched their plan.

Robbed the biggest bling shop in the chartered city Dagupan  and Pangasinan province in more than a minute, rode shotgun  with their supposed to be P50 million loot on the five motorcycles they stole in Metro Manila via the road in Barangay Pantal , leave the bikes along the road and calmly rode the two Sports and Asian Utility Vehicles waiting for them at the foot of the bridge of the new Pantal-Dawel Diversion Highway, and become millionaires again when they reached Metro Manila.

The bridge is 500 meters away from the subject jewelry shop and the robbery would be as fast as there would be less people in and outside of the gem store and the road as it was a weekend.

The red circle is where BHF Jewelry & Gemline was located. The red lines 
going to the arrow at the left side is the route the five motorcycle riding robbers 
traversed. The arrow was the foot of the bridge
where their two cars waited for them. They proceeded, bystanders said, to
ether Brgy. Lucao or Binmaley  town.

The change of vehicles was supposed to be a master stroke to outsmart the city’s chief of police, Superintendent Christopher Abrahano (PNPA Class of 1996) whose first orders of the day after assumption of office in 2013 was to plug with armed-to-the teeth policemen all the escape routes in the city.

An initiative he made to deter any robbery syndicates who would emulate the  hardened “Martilyo (hammer)” Gang who swoop for minutes a branch of BHF shop with its P10 million worth of jewelries , leave the city in a breeze in a Ford F-150 with the motorcycles on its carriage, and embarrassed his predecessor Superintendent Romeo Caramat (PMA ’92) in 2012.

“Nunquam Iterum (Never Again)”

But  Nunquam Iterum was elusive thing to crack as BGG has another trick on their sleeve.

The trick could either be likened to Sun Tzu’s Art of War in deception or just plain innovation from the Cable-TV show “Breaking the Magician Code" at AXN.

But as the opus of heisting was being implemented, Murphy’s Law sneaked in the scene and became anti climactic.

They paid a dear price on their inefficient intelligence gathering in the police lingo called "Casing" on the floor plan and the number of the guards of the jewelry shop. Here’s how BGG’s blunder themselves as narrated to me by a source who asked anonymity:

 

Black arrow in the lower middle of the illustration is the main door.
 10 human figures are the robbers , while a shotgun at extreme
right is where the guard at the 2nd floor positioned himself.

12: 31 Pm

It was a lazy afternoon for the two guards and two lady employees of the jewelry shop as two women customers’ window shopped to the array of personal ornaments they sold at the glass covered display counters. The door guard who did not carry a long or short firearm opened the glass door went out from the store and spit at the sidewalk and returned to his chair and table inside and near the doorway.

A medium built guy carrying a knapsack at his back entered the door and turned to his left corner where the jewelries were displayed. In every five seconds each of the four more guys entered the same corner. Despite the five men and two women customers inside the jewelry section, the guard, standing and wielding a shotgun, was nonchalant where he stood near the doorway of the jewelry section.

Three more men, one with a knapsack at his back, entered the main doorway but proceeded to the appliances section in front of them. Before reaching the appliances being displayed there they have to pass the jewelry section where their companion, waiting for a signal, was ensconced there.

The first robber to enter the jewelry shop (upper photo). After he disarmed the guard 
(knelling with hands covering his head) at his back with the help of his companion, 
he walked to the right side to unpack his knapsack with the three or four loot bags inside.

12:32 Pm

Two more men sporting a base ball hat and knapsack carried in front of their torso entered the doorway and the fat one, known as Alfred Conde Mondares alias Junjun Dapu, who was medium built with a white cap spoke to the guard who was seating in the front desk. Guard seems horrified while the two men were holding something inside their bag (psst dear reader, they were the lethal M-16 Baby Armalite Assault Rifles).

The first man to enter the jewelry shop pulled out a .45 or 9mm in his front pants aimed at the guard inside while his companion immediately grabbed the shot gun with his two hands. Guard was asked to kneel while all the women either asked to kneel or lay in a prone position on the floor.

Then robbers took from a knapsack three or four big loot bags made of plastic straws  and literally jumped, like acrobats, by holding the edge of the display compartment so they can enter the sales ladies area and started opening the glass door for a fast stash of the gold and silver displayed inside.

The companion of the white short wearing fat man guarded the main glass door overlooking the busy downtown area while the fat man asked one of the men, wielding a baby Armalite assault rifle, at the appliance center to escort the trembling front desk guard inside.

Two men, carrying menacingly with an either .45 or 9mm handguns, inside asked the guard and the male helper to lay face down on the floor.

12:33 Pm

Fat man returned to the front desk watching calmly his men stashed the jewelries.

A deafening fire arm shot rung from somewhere that surprised and alarmed not only the leader who was hit in the body but all his nine men inside. Stashing stopped for a moment. Every heads were seen looking for the perpetrator of the blast. Fat man looked at the appliance center probably somebody fired a gun there. They could not see the shooter.

After three seconds another shot rung and everybody saw the fat man smashed his face on the floor as a result of the buck of a shotgun shot on his nape.

“Parang si Manny Pacquiao noong na-ambushed siya ng right flush hook ni Juan Manuel Marquez?” I posed, as a resource speaker of boxing at GMA-7 TV Northern Luzon, to my source.

“Walang sinabi iyong pag-bagsak ni Pacquiao, ito three times ang bilis ng bagsak ng tama-am sa leeg ng shot gun!” my source said.

“Son of a gun, there was “sniper”, a guard, with a shot gun three meters away hiding in the second floor where the pawnshop of BHF was located,” I retorted.

“Nakaligta-an ma casing ng mga hold-upper na may pawnshop pa pala sa itaas (the bad guys overlooked when they were scouting the area that there was a pawnshop and a guard upstairs),” my source said.  

The five robbers who were mostly young people in the jewelry store panicked, were terrorized, and dreaded  the dilemma they faced.  They could not see the enemy. Some of them ducked on the floor like a wannabe Olympic swimmer diving on the swimming pool without water.

They all crawled hurriedly in the innermost corner of the jewelry shop and formed a line behind  the concrete foundation of the building that could repel any shoots from the son-of-a –bitch guard  who made a free shot at them – a group of notorious battle scarred gang that have strings of robberies and kidnapped –for-ransom cases in Manila and the Visayas.

“They did not know how many were the enemies, they just cramped and squeezed themselves in that little corner like dogs with tails behind their back,” my source said.

One of the three robbers in the appliance center aiming his hand gun as the guard
in the 2nd floor fatally blasted with his shot gun the nape and the body of their leader.
 The one who is in the prone position is the horrified male helper. After the heist,
he was accused of being too- late- a- hero the Johnny Come Lately of BHF.

12:34 Pm

Silence commence for few seconds as the bad guys try to regain their composure.

Successive shots from the jewelry section have been heard at the direction of the second floor while a shot gun blast was heard from the guard upstairs.

“Somebody there must be neutralized otherwise the heist would be compromised as policemen and the cocky Dagupan City SWAT (Special Weapons, Action Team) and their big guns would be around any moment and we would all die not only from the police but to the wannabe sniper upstairs,” I surmised this was what the malefactors have been thinking how they can extract themselves in that eternity.

The three robbers, where one was in his teen, in the appliance center have been menaced and restless as they peeped cautiously any activity at the pawnshop. Their companion with an M-16 Armalite peppered aimlessly the second floor and scampered back to hide in the appliance center.

Suddenly the first man to enter was seen dashing outside the front door as he fired his pistol upstairs. He was followed by his four threatened companions as some fired too recklessly upstairs. One of them even dropped to the floor, as his foot slipped to a broken glass, as they squeezed themselves to exit in the narrow half opened glass door.

The man with a Baby Armalite dashed too as he fired automatic shots in the second floor but was hit in the body by another shotgun shot from the guard. The two teen- robbers, with left hand covering their left face against the shot gun blast, mustered all their speed behind the Armalite wielding  companion they ran for survival by passing the  bloody corpse of the fat man, who was believed to be a member of the elite Army Special Forces.

Victim of Murphy 's  Law: The leader who was
gunned down by the guard. The deceased was a
former member of the Army's Elite Special
Forces. His family took his remain in June 3.
His house, according to a source, in Ozamis City is
a four-story building 

12:35 Pm

 After the last robber egresses to straddle on their five motorcycles outside the disarmed guard at the jewelry shop who now regained his shotgun was seen running, too, outside.

“Was he part of marauders too who want to escape?” I asked jocularly my source.

“Hell no, he wanted revenge and redemption as he pumped a shot from his shot gun to one of the escaping motorcycle riders in tandem,” my source said.

Then he was followed by a lean guard, the pawnshop sniper, holding his shotgun and talked to him as if he was Russian marksman the same slim built Vassli Zaitsev in my favorite true story Russian versus German sniper movie  Enemy at the Gates that was held at Stalingrad, Russia when the Nazi of Adolf Hitler blitzkrieg it but failed.

The story of the trapped robbers at BHF should stop at 12:35 Pm but there was still drama that unfolded you readers should relish.

CORPUS DELICTI :Author with the five motorbikes used by the robbers.
He was borrowing two of them so he can lend them to media men
Harold Barcelona and Atong Remogat but the police would not allow 
him since the bikes would be used as evidences in court after they filed a
 robbery, attempted homicide, and assault cases against the Brazuela Gang.


The male helper at the appliance store, who was  in  prone position and who was so terrorized that he was covering his face with both of his hands, as firefights ensued at the store stood from where he was laying faced down, made a sneaked and saw three of the guards alive and exchanging notes near the doorway.

He jumped to the remains of the leader, pulled out the Baby Armalite inside the bag brandished it as the two guards restrained him to go outside. But he slipped from their strong arms and was seen shouting invectives and challenging in the middle of the road the imagined marauders who were already jumping from their motorcycles, where they left another M-16 with blood stained, inside the Toyota Innova and a sports utility vehicle (SUV) at the foot of the bridge of the new Pantal-Dawel Diversion Highway – 500 meters away from the besieged jewelry shop.

“Mga putang ina kayo, nasaan na kayo!” he was seen and heard shouting.

Two of the recovered M-16 Baby Armalite Assault Automatic Rifles

A bystander, according to my source, frantically warned him, “bumalik ang mga holdupper galing sa (Barangay) Pantal kasi naka bantay na ang mga pulis sa junctions ng Pantal-Dawel Highway, na trapped sila!”.

After hearing this, the helper, with self preservation again in his mind, scurried  inside and hid in the safety of his companions at the BHF Jewelry Gemshop.
At five minutes after the first shot rung inside, a motorcycle riding policeman, assigned at the nearby Jollibee, arrived for an ocular inspection and called his fellow policemen who were sealing off all the possible escape routes of the blundering robbers.

"Policemen were at the crime scene five minutes after the first gunshot and two minutes after receipt of info(rmation) from a bystander. This can be proven by CCTV (inside the BHF), " Lt. Colonel Abrahano stressed to this blogger.

He said his patrollers gave chase to the suspects.

He explained the robbers deceived the police who thought they were still riding their motorbikes.

"Na misled lang kami because they jettisoned their bikes and M-16s and boarded another vehicle. Dagupan was essentially sealed off pero police were looking for motorcycles (they supposed to be riding)".

One of the robbers according to the source even got lost in one of the roads in the village but eventually found his way out by following his companions waiting at the foot of the bridge in the new Dawel-Pantal Highway.

You can click the two articles on this BHF's brouhahas on the following links:
1)Dagupan Guard Blasted to Death BHF’s Robber

http://wwwmortzcortigoza.blogspot.com/2014/05/guard-blasted-to-death-bhfs-robber.html
2) Suspects in Dagupan Jewelry Store Heist Identified; Case Solved
http://wwwmortzcortigoza.blogspot.com/2014/06/suspects-in-dagupan-jewelry-store-heist.html

(You can read my selected columns at http://mortzortigoza.blogspot.com and articles at Pangasinan News Aro. You can send comments too attotomortz@yahoo.com).