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Reminder to all shoppers: Be cautious.
“At around 4pm last Saturday, August 15, a young woman, believed to be a minor, allegedly pretended to be a saleslady at a Pasay City mall before taking away an unsuspecting customer’s mobile phone over the weekend,” reports GMA News’ 24 Oras.
Antonio Reyes, the barangay captain of Barangay 146, related that “while other store staff were not looking, the suspect apparently passed herself off as a sales clerk and pretended to assist one of the customers, who was choosing among the clothes on a rack.”
“Alam pa ng bata kung saan [ang] fitting room. Noong nakalingat ang dalawang bantay roon, siya ang pumronta na tindera (The girl knew where the fitting room was. When the two sales clerk were not at the area, she posed as a saleslady),” said Reyes
The girl then pretended to help a customer go to the fitting room. She allegedly told the customer to just leave her bag with her. The customer complied, so the girl was able to steal the cellphone easily.
The report noted: “The act was not caught on video, but the footage showed that the girl leaving the premises with a mobile phone in her hand. When the complainant discovered that her phone was stolen, she went to the barangay hall and reported the incident.”
The suspect also had another victim. It turns out that when she went out of the mall, she hailed pedicab driver Danny Tres Fuentes. She told him to take her to the Libertad area, where she claimed she would have her cellphone fixed. She went down at the said area and didn’t even pay Fuentes.
Authorities are now using CCTV footage to try to track down the girl.
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