End of road for trio who terrorised Miri for months

MIRI: Police moved in swiftly early yesterday morning to apprehend three local men within hours of a robbery, and ending a crime spree of robbery, housebreaking and theft.

The arrests were made less than two hours after the trio allegedly robbed a Filipino worker of a massage parlour in Pelita commercial centre.

The first two suspects aged 20 and 30 were nabbed behind a premises at Jalan Sri Dagang at around 1.45am.

Their arrest led the police task force team to the location of the third suspect who was apprehended in Krokop around 2am.

State CID chief SAC Dev Kumar disclosed this in a press statement released yesterday.

The arrest was led by ASP Nagulan Maniam while conducting crime prevention duties around the area.

With the arrests, police also recovered a machete, two masks and two black jackets believed to have been used in the robbery.

In the incident around 12.30am, three men were seen barging into the massage parlour and demanded the female cashier to hand over all of her belongings and cash.

With loot of more than RM6,000 worth of cash and valuables, the suspects fled the scene, leaving the victim unharmed. A police report was filed immediately.

According to SAC Dev, they believed the same group was responsible for a robbery at a 7-Eleven store at Boulevard road a day earlier at about 3.30am.

In that incident, two masked men armed with Samurai sword forced a 21-year-old cashier to hand over his mobile phone. Nothing else was robbed from the store.

“Two of the suspects have previous convictions and have been jailed for housebreaking and theft,” said Dev.

“We believe this group has been active in Miri for the past two months…we hope to solve many cases of robbery and housebreaking and theft in Miri with this arrest,” he said.

SAC Dev Kumar credited ASP Nagulan and his team from CPS Miri for putting an end to this group’s crime spree.