Ex-cashier allegedly stole $17K from Hyatt vault

Police arrested Tuesday afternoon a former cashier of Hyatt Regency Saipan in Garapan for allegedly stealing $17,000 cash from the hotel’s vault.

Police served Benedicto Dirking Lizama of As Matuis with an arrest warrant for theft.

Lizama, 20, was taken to Superior Court yesterday for his initial court appearance. His bail was set at $20,000 cash.

Police detective Catherine B. Pangelinan stated in her report that Lizama confessed that he took $17,000 from the vault in February 2014 to have it changed at a bank and that it was stolen from his car when he went inside McDonald’s in Garapan.

Pangelinan said that, according to the hotel’s credit manager, Lizama was not authorized to take money from the vault to the bank.

Investigation showed that a police officer was sent to Hyatt on June 20, 2014, after the hotel’s director of finance reported that money worth $15,999.75 was missing from the general cashier’s fund inside the main vault.

Lizama, who was then the only person in charge of the vault, told the police officer that he took the money from the vault in February 2014 to have it changed at the bank.

Last Friday, Pangelinan said, the hotel’s credit manager appeared at the Department of Public Safety’s Commonwealth Bureau of Investigation to follow up on the case.

The credit manager provided police with a copy of Hyatt’s change fund receipt agreement between the hotel and Lizama. In that agreement, Pangelinan said, Lizama acknowledged that he is not allowed to bring money from the hotel to the bank.

Pangelinan said she and another detective met with Lizama on Monday at Pau Pau Beach and brought him to Commonwealth Bureau of Investigation for interview.

Pangelinan said that on their way to CBI, she read Lizama his Miranda rights, and that he then confessed taking the money from the vault to change it at Bank of Hawaii.

Pangelinan said Lizama claimed that he went inside McDonald’s and left the money inside a Hyatt brown bag on the passenger seat of his vehicle.

Lizama said that when he returned to the vehicle, the bag that contained the cash was already missing. He claimed that he forgot to lock the car’s door and that he did not report the incident to the police or his manager.

The hotel’s credit manager said she is the authorized person to fax the bank to get the exact amount of change needed, then G4S guards would pick up the money from the bank and escort the money to Hyatt.

Lizama was soon terminated from his work at Hyatt, Saipan Tribune learned.