Cop nabbed for stealing guns

Credit to Author: Tempo Desk| Date: Thu, 27 Feb 2020 09:41:07 +0000

CEBU CITY – A policeman was accused of stealing several firearms that had been turned over to the police station for safekeeping while their owners were processing their license renewals.

Police Corporal Marlito Portugueza, assistant investigator of the Waterfront Police Station, was arrested by fellow policemen when he was asked to report for work at 3:45 a.m. yesterday.

“This is very disappointing. We have been strict in the internal cleansing and we have this kind of an incident in our backyard,” said Police Col. Engelbert Soriano, chief of the Cebu City Police Office.

Portugueza, who was detained at the CCPO detention facility, refused to comment on his arrest.

Soriano said that Portugueza, who joined the police service in 2013, will be facing robbery and administrative charges.

“It is very hard to become a policeman and yet he committed this kind of an offense which is rare and first kind of an incident here,” said Soriano.

Police Major Joemar Pomarejos, chief of the Waterfront police, and personnel of the Integrity Monitoring and Enforcement Group-Visayas Field Office, started conducting an investigation when it was discovered in January that a firearm kept in the evidence room was missing.

It was later discovered that a total of 12 firearms were missing.

In the investigation, it was found out that there was a time when Portugueza asked the evidence custodian if he could check the fir
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