THREE foreign nationals kidnapped on three separate occasions at a casino hotel in Manila were rescued by authorities at a daring raid at the suspects’ safe house in a subdivision in Bulacan Monday afternoon, police said.
Supt. Glenn Dumlao, acting director of the PNP-Anti-Kidnapping Group, identified the rescued foreigners were Liu Xia, a Chinese; Park Panho and Yeum Sunki, both Korean nationals.
The rescue of the three kidnap foreigners also resulted in the arrest of six suspected kidnappers.
Dumlao said the kidnap victims were snatched by the suspects at the Pan-Pacific Hotel and Casino and were brought to the suspects’ hideout at No. 45 A. Tomas Avenue, Felville Subdivision, Sta Cruz, Guiguinto, Bulacan.
First to be taken by the suspects, according to Dumlao, was Park Panho who disappeared at the Casino, followed by Liu Xia and Yeum Sunki.
The rescue operations surfaced after the Korean Embassy in Manila reported the kidnapping of Sunki to the PNP-ACG.
Dumlao said upon receipt of the Korean Embassy information, a team of ACG operatives was formed and launched rescue operations.
Sunki’s rescue also led to the discovery of two other kidnapped foreigners—a Chinese female who was help captive for almost a month and another Korean national locked up in another room maintained by casino loan shark lender Ernesto Agsulid Marella.
Dumlao identified the arrested kidnappers as Ernesto Agsulid Marella , 55; Alexander Roxas Dionisio, alias Jr.; Jomar Ramos dela Peña, alias Jao, 29; Ferdie Adrinao Dionisio, alias Taba, 32, all residents of Balanga, Bataan; and Florida dela Peña De Guzman, alias Edmund, 34, of Guiguinto, Bulacan.
A case of kidnapping for ransom and serious illegal detention would be filed against the arrested suspects.
The kidnapping incident this year has so far victimized three Koreans, three Chinese, a Singaporean and an Indian national in separate incidents.
The Philippine National Police said the kidnapping of foreigners in the country had resulted in the arrest of 44 Chinese nationals in the abduction of a fellow compatriot, four policemen in a kidnap and extortion try against a Filipino trader.
At least three kidnappers—two Indian nationals and a Filipino cohort—were killed by AKG operatives in a rescue mission for a kidnapped Indian trader in Biñan, Laguna last August.