Six members of the LGBTQ+ community and a woman were arrested after being accused of stealing a cellphone inside a nightclub on Pelaez Street, Barangay Kalubihan, Cebu City.
The suspects were identified as alias Levy, 27, a single mother from Barangay Suba; and six LGBTQ+ individuals: alias Oyong, 27, from Barangay Mabolo; alias Jimboy, 54, from Barangay Duljo Fatima; alias Jerome, 31, from Barangay Ermita; alias Jame, 24, from Kamputhaw; alias Arwen, 26, from Ermita; and alias Christian, also from Ermita.
The arrests were made during a follow-up operation at a pension house also located on Pelaez Street.
According to Police Colonel George Ylanan, chief of the Cebu City Police Office (CCPO), at around 4:00 a.m. on Thursday, May 7, 2026, a man named alias Glenn reported to the Investigation and Detective Management Unit (IDMU) about an incident that occurred inside the nightclub.
Glenn stated that while he was inside the nightclub, he saw the suspects drinking. After a while, they approached him and started mingling with him. However, when they left, his cellphone worth P10,000 was missing.
Personnel from the IDMU and the Carbon Police Station immediately reviewed CCTV footage, which revealed that the suspects had taken his phone. Investigators tracked the suspects' route through backtracking and found that they had entered a pension house near the nightclub.
At around 10:00 a.m., police successfully arrested one of the seven suspects, who then identified the other accomplices, leading to their subsequent arrests.
Ylanan said that the same group is also believed to be responsible for stealing from foreigners who drink at bars in Mango Square, Kasambagan, and IT Park. By examining CCTV footage from nightclubs, authorities determined that the seven suspects were the same individuals targeting foreigners.
Their modus operandi involved approaching intoxicated foreigners, hugging them while an accomplice would take the victim's cellphone and wallet. Another method was to accompany foreigners to rented rooms by pretending to be women, where they would then rob them of their belongings and money. The victims usually only filed a blotter report.
Alias Levy, a single mother of two, admitted to the crime. She said she was forced into this line of work due to extreme poverty, claiming she had no one else to turn to in order to save her family from hunger. Levy apologized to their victims and revealed that many of the regulars at Mango Square were also involved in stealing from intoxicated foreigners.
Ylanan urged other victims of the group to visit the CCPO to formally file additional cases in court.
