On Monday afternoon, September 19th, 2011, a red Isuzu Adventure pulled into the car park at People's Agri Supply in the Capistrano Complex in Cagayan del Oro City's Barangay Gusa. As the driver left the SUV running three men exited the vehicle leaving behind a comrade who waited in the SUV's rear seat. Dressed in PNP, or Philippine National Police t-shirts and camoflogue fatigue pants and carrying 45 caliber pistols and one "baby Armalite" (CAR-15, a mini-M16) rifle they stopped at the entrance to talk to a private guard armed with a pump shotgun. Quickly disarming the guard and forcing him into the business' warehouse-like interior where they found Mr.Boniao deep in conversation with two of his employees.
Seeing his guard's shotgun in the hands of what appeared to be a police officer Mr.Boniao suddenly stopped in mid-conversation and stared at his guard and the three supposed police officers. One of the "police officers" asked the two employees speaking with Boniao to go to the rear of the store after divesting them of their cellphones. It was probably then that Mr.Boniao was struck with the sickening realisation that all was not well because his employees later said that Boniao appeared confused for a moment and then suddenly appeared defiant. Unable to hear the exchange between the three well armed men and their employer, the employees themselves were unaware of any imminent danger until Boniao suddenly raised his voice telling the men, "No, no, no! I'm not going anywhere!"
The commotion caused Boniao's 17 year old son Edwin to come from the business' rear storage area. When he appeared there were some quick words among the three kidnappers and one of the men drew down with his 45 caliber pistol on Edwin which caused Mr.Boniao to lunge at the man before a second of the kidnappers turned the barrel of his pistol towards Boniao who suddenly appeared drained of all strength. It was then that Edwin's mother came out of her office and saw her husband surrounded by three well armed and angry looking men. Turning her head and seeing the firm's security guard disarmed she must have realised that a kidnapping was taking place because she suddenly fainted and collapsed to the floor.
Too shocked to even react Boniao and Edwin complied with the kidnappers' demands and began moving towards the front entrance. Before stepping out into the carpark the men had a loud exchange concerning Boniao's teenaged son who apparently wasn't part of their plan. KFR, or Kidnap for Ransom groups are almost always very highly structured organisations founded by ex or current insurgents. Organised along the lines of the larger insurgent armies KFR groups organise themselves in cell-like fashion with only one or two members ever knowing the complete picture from top to bottom. The actual kidnappers at the point of abduction are contract labour. They merely are informed of the target hours before the actual abduction takes place with the lengthly footwork and surveillance having been undertaken by actual members of the KFR group. Once the contractors abduct their victim they are given a location well known to them as their destination point to drop off the victim. There the victim is taken by actual members of the KFR group and transported, in most cases by water, to a second location.
At that second location the victim is handed off to a third team who then transports him or her to an organisational safehouse, usually a family's home where the victim is confined but otherwise treated fairly well. From that first safehouse the victim will be shunted towards various other locations and if ransom negotiations are long winded will almost alwats be sold up the foodchain to allied groups. In these kidnappings of longer duration the victim's living conditions rapidly deteriorate until they are living deep in the bush just as insurgents do. There are minor variations in this rift but that is the general scenario in all Mindanowan KFRs EXCEPT for the relatively small number directly committed by the ASG, or Abu Sayyaf Group or those victims that eventually end up with the Islamo-fascist insurgents cum terrorists. Victims who end up with the Abu Sayyaf either by direct abduction or by having been sold to them endure very poor conditions and run the very real risk of death, usually by decapitation if killed by Abu Sayyaf themselves or from so called "rescue attempts" by minimally trained Government forces.
So it was that Mr. Boniao's kidnappers released his teenaged son Edwin, not having been ordered to abduct him and not daring to incur the wrath of their very powerful employer(s). Taking their sole victim, Mr.Boniao, out of the building and into the carpark they very quickly bundled him into the rear of the idling vehicle where the waiting member quickly placed a hood over his head as the three kidnappers climbed in along side Mr.Boniao. The SUV then exited at a high rate of speed and was last seen speeding down National Hiway heading east into Barangay Puerto where they presumably dropped their victim at a seaside location for waterborne transport that eventually brought Mr.Boniao out of Misamis Oriental Province and into Lanao del Sur Province where he will be kept. Very well worth noting is that the liscence plate on the kidnappers' vehicle, SEZ-205, denotes a government owned vehicle (all "S" series plates are government issue only). The jist is that the assailants just may have owned those "fake" police uniforms they wore. With the very recent arrest of a police unit on Luzon for the very same crime it is a very important consideration.
Interestingly, the Mayor of Cagayan del Oro City, Vicente Emano did not supress news of the kidnapping. Emano and Boniao are personal associates, even friends if you take Mayor Emano's word on it. The one thing no knowledgable person in the Philippines wants is the publiscising of a loved one's kidnapping. For reasons I have explained ad naseum in umpteenth other KFR entries, it increases both the duration AND the ransom of particular kidnappings. To boot, politicians like Mayor Emano have nothing to gain by allowing their municipality to be linked to any kidnapping. It drives down investment and that Philippine byword, development in a very real way. Yet here was Emano not only confirming that this kidnapping had taken place but he actually went and held a press conference which naturally ups the cachet of the kidnapping by several degrees.
Perhaps more interestingly, Mayor Emano "asked" why Bonia would have been targeted since "his business is in trouble" and he "isn't (even) very rich." The fact of the matter is that Boniao is a player on the Nothern Mindanao real estate market having even been a major partner in the Alegria Hills subdivision that broke ground in 2007. The main partner in that extremely lucrative endeavour, on 54 hectares spanning three different barangays, is none other than the Ayala Group, the pre-eminent real estate developer in the Philippines. In addition Mr.Boniao has been instrumental in other endeavours such as OPIANM, or the Oil Palm Industry Association of Northern Mindanao, of which he has been President for well over a decade. In 2003 then-President Gloria M.Arroyo gave the organisation a hefty P84 Million ($880,000) to convert a portion of the region's agricultural lands into Oil Palm groves. Most of the targeted land of course lay fallow but that is par for the course in the Philippines. Ergo, Mayor Emano, already facing graft charges (for the fifth time in seven years) may end up like his compatriot in Cotabato City, Vice Mayor Muslimin Sema, being charged with KFR.
The day after the kidnapping of Mr.Boniao his familiy received the opening gambit in what promises to be a lenghtly process if the initial demand is indicative, and it almost always is. The kidnappers are initially demanding P100 Million ($2,200,000).
Showing posts with label Cagayan del Oro City. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cagayan del Oro City. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Kidnap for Ransom for Third Quarter of 2011, Part IX: Allison Bondoc, Release of Ambon Ahamad Blas and Perlita Bagay
On Sunday morning, August 21st, 2011, 21 year old live in maid Marycris Candalesa was asleep in her room in the servant quarters of the Bondoc Family home in Cagayan del Oro City's Barangay Kauswagan. At 515AM that morning her repose was broken by the loud ringing of her cellphone on the table next to her bed. Tiredly reaching for the phone, her coworker and room mate saw Marycris' expression change in an instant from exhausted to livid. Hearing the young lady dare a male voice to do it but leave her out of it.
Moments later Marycris left their room and stepped out into the cool morning air. Seeing shadows on the inner wall of the compound she quickly screamed to warn her boss Allison Bondoc of the imminent danger. As Marycris was looking at Ms.Bondoc one of four young men who had just scaled the 3 meter high wall separating the palatial home on the city's Dandelion Street from the hustle and bustle of city life, raised a 45 caliber pistol and squeezed off a single round. Marycris dropped, the bullet entering through the back of her skull and exiting through her forehead having pierced her brain, killing her instantly. She had spent less than 4 weeks at her position and would be returning to her hometown of Jasaan in that same province of Misamis Oriental in a wooden coffin.
Needless to say, having saved her new employer Allison Bondoc from a certain kidnapping her short time working there will always be respectfully remembered by the entire Bondoc family. Still, the question remains, the phone call was timed exactly to co-incide with the infiltration of the Bondoc compound. And what of the spat Marycris had had after answering her cellphone? The obvious assumption is that the maid, as is so often the case on Mindanao, was a plant, tasked with casing the Bondoc family and its home for a KFR, or Kidnap for Ransom group. Did she change her mind about helping the kidnappers, albeit a tad bit too late, or is it just a strane co-incidence? We will never know at this point.
Post Script: On Wednesday, August 31st Cagayan del Oro City's City Councilor Juan Sia put forth a Motion that Marycris be officially recognised for her "good deed" and that her family be given financial assistance to tide them over through this difficult time.
On a much more cheerful note, two victims recently kidnapped on Jolo Island in Sulu Province have just been released, Sunday, August 28th, 2011. 60 year old Ambon Ahamad Blas and 25 year old Perlita Bagay had been waylaid on August 21st, 2011 while riding tandem on a single motorcycle after a day spent selling used clothing in the municipality of Patikul. As the motorcycle was traversing Barangay Latih a local streetgang calling itself the "Virgin Boys" blocked their path and captured them. The game plan had been to sell the pair to ASG, or the Abu Sayyaf Group via local factional leader sub-Kumander Basaram Arok.
Arok, wanted for the KFR and eventual decapitation of public school principal Roger Canizares in late 2009 is still a power to reckon with in Patikul's upland barangays. Arok however thought the pickings not worth the time and effort, after all, used clothing sellers do not bring lucrative ransoms. With Arok taking a pass on the pair of victims the Virgin Boys leaders were then forced to handle the ransoming and ended up scoring a quick P100,000 ($1,850) for just a couple of days sweat. Of course the downside is that having scored 4 months wages for a week's work will only serve to inspire the group to take a more active role in the KFR Industry.
Moments later Marycris left their room and stepped out into the cool morning air. Seeing shadows on the inner wall of the compound she quickly screamed to warn her boss Allison Bondoc of the imminent danger. As Marycris was looking at Ms.Bondoc one of four young men who had just scaled the 3 meter high wall separating the palatial home on the city's Dandelion Street from the hustle and bustle of city life, raised a 45 caliber pistol and squeezed off a single round. Marycris dropped, the bullet entering through the back of her skull and exiting through her forehead having pierced her brain, killing her instantly. She had spent less than 4 weeks at her position and would be returning to her hometown of Jasaan in that same province of Misamis Oriental in a wooden coffin.
Needless to say, having saved her new employer Allison Bondoc from a certain kidnapping her short time working there will always be respectfully remembered by the entire Bondoc family. Still, the question remains, the phone call was timed exactly to co-incide with the infiltration of the Bondoc compound. And what of the spat Marycris had had after answering her cellphone? The obvious assumption is that the maid, as is so often the case on Mindanao, was a plant, tasked with casing the Bondoc family and its home for a KFR, or Kidnap for Ransom group. Did she change her mind about helping the kidnappers, albeit a tad bit too late, or is it just a strane co-incidence? We will never know at this point.
Post Script: On Wednesday, August 31st Cagayan del Oro City's City Councilor Juan Sia put forth a Motion that Marycris be officially recognised for her "good deed" and that her family be given financial assistance to tide them over through this difficult time.
On a much more cheerful note, two victims recently kidnapped on Jolo Island in Sulu Province have just been released, Sunday, August 28th, 2011. 60 year old Ambon Ahamad Blas and 25 year old Perlita Bagay had been waylaid on August 21st, 2011 while riding tandem on a single motorcycle after a day spent selling used clothing in the municipality of Patikul. As the motorcycle was traversing Barangay Latih a local streetgang calling itself the "Virgin Boys" blocked their path and captured them. The game plan had been to sell the pair to ASG, or the Abu Sayyaf Group via local factional leader sub-Kumander Basaram Arok.
Arok, wanted for the KFR and eventual decapitation of public school principal Roger Canizares in late 2009 is still a power to reckon with in Patikul's upland barangays. Arok however thought the pickings not worth the time and effort, after all, used clothing sellers do not bring lucrative ransoms. With Arok taking a pass on the pair of victims the Virgin Boys leaders were then forced to handle the ransoming and ended up scoring a quick P100,000 ($1,850) for just a couple of days sweat. Of course the downside is that having scored 4 months wages for a week's work will only serve to inspire the group to take a more active role in the KFR Industry.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Kidnap for Ransom,Second Quarter of 2011,Part III: American Citizen Milton Strowell Taylor
Milton "Sam" Strowell Taylor, a 63 year old American retiree from Ohio was dreaming of a better life when he arrived on Mindanao in early December, 2010. Like a suprisingly large number of American vistors to the island Mr.Taylor came in search of...buried treasure. Beginning in the very late 1960s enterprising con artists and people of questionable character began manufacturing stories usually centering on buried Japanese Gold.
The usual spiel is that a horde of "Yamashita's Gold" has been found. General Tomoyuki"Tiger of Malaya"Yamashita raped and pillaged all over Southeast Asia before shipping all the gold and jewels he had "confiscated" to Manila by way of Singapore. Once in the Philippines the war took a turn for the worse and so as Yamashita began retreating ahead of Allied troops he began depositing cachets in out of the way places, for retrieval in better times. Unfotunately for the General, Japan got its as* handed to them and Yamashita was captured. Worse still, he was branded a War Criminal (I hate when that happens) and was put on trial. Predictably General Yamashita was found guilty and on February 23, 1946 he was executed at Los Banos Prison Camp in Metro Manila.
While Mindanao WAS occupied, AND brutalised, by the Japanese during WWII, Yamashita never touched its shores. His legendary fighting retreat took place in Luzon. This is well worth mentioning because Yamashita is the name most often attached to supposed cachets of gold bullion, silver ingots and nickel babbits that enterprising swindlers claim to have discovered. An interesting riff on the theme is an American payroll in the form of Bearer Bonds or T-Notes, en route to USAFE guerilla forces on the island, crashed into an interior mountainside. There the plane and its contents sat undisturbed in the primeval rainforest until its latent discovery by primitive tribesmen with no concept of money, or modern concerns. Personally I find the latter story more believable and therefore I am a bit confused as to why such scammers are perpetually recycling the "gold bullion" nonsense as opposed to the "payroll" tale.
It is believed that the dynamic began on Luzon, indeed the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos claimed to have actually located Yamashita's treasure (giving rise to another Urban Legend, "Marcos' Gold." However THIS claim has been largely disproved and rationalised as an alibi for the vast fortune Marcos squirreled away. A fitting sidenote to these Luzon-centric tales is that almost always they involve Negrito Tribesmen. Originally the Negritos were mostly innocent actors, manipulated and duped themselves into portraying the "discovers" of whatever treasure was being peddled. Before long the Negritos themselves wised up and soon negated the role of lowlander middlemen and brokers, directly controlling the scam. I find that information gratifying on a certain level because if any one group should profit from the misery of whitemen it should be those whose land has been stolen BY whites (and in this case EVERYONE BUT NEGRITOS THEMSELVES) and who until the present live so far below the poverty line as to be virtually invisible. Don't get me wrong, I think theft is reprehensible EVEN IF it is entirely driven by the greed of the victim. It is just that I can't help admiring an iota of poetic justice..,
On Mindanao the usual scam involves fake gold ingots. In a very amateurish fashion the thieves take thinly gold plated bars, usually with lead cores, and then pass them off to naïve treasure hunters. To understand how gullible victims are, as heavy as lead may be, it is not nearly as heavy as actual gold. To show it in an even more ridiculous fashion, one recent scam used gold plated aluminum ingots! Aluminum is many more times lighter than steel, which is itself STILL three times as light as pure gold! Yet, after a scratch test which always registers positive for gold, we see person, after person, after person getting conned out of their money.
Just a few weeks ago, on February 28, 2011 a couple in Davao City were lured into such a scam. Despicably it was the wife's own aunt who led them like lambs to the slaughter. Florentino and Mailyn Capuyan allowed themselves to stupidly follow the advice of Marilyn's aunt, Erlinda P.Fernandez. Fernandez knew that the couple were looking into investing their savings and so arranged for the them to get in on a "great deal." After a quick phone call by Marilyn's salivating auntie they were given an address and told to immediately proceed to the home of Inday Mansalita. Ms.Mansalita, a Lumad (member of a Hilltribe, usually Animist) was "brokering" the cachet "discovered by fellow Lumads. Probably trebling with excitement...AND GREED, the couple wasted no time in driving to Malibog District on the outskirts of Davao City and found the Mansalita home.
Having agreed, amazingly on the phone, to buy 1 ingot and a gold Buddha statue for P1.7M (roughly 33,000 US) Florentino intelligenty asked to test the goods before handing over the paperbag full of pesos. When he picked up the ingot, which was manufactured out of an aluminum core, he realised it wasn't genuine (gee, it FINALLY occurred to him) and refused to fork over six times the average annual Mindanowan salary. At that point Inday's 7 male friends popped out with bolos (machetes) and explained that IF the couple didn't want to buy the ingot and statue, that was their perogative. However, their money was staying. To add insult to injury Marilyn had her P6,000 watch, P32,000 worth of jewlery and her P2,500 cellphone taken as well. At least they lived to tell about it, and to charge all the players including Auntie Erlinda.
In kidnap victim Milton Strowell Taylor's case, he was spending months online, chatting up the bottom feeders lurking around treasure hunting websites. These sites are full of con artists and the fish they fry. One person spending a lot of time talking to Mr.Taylor was a man from Lanao del Norte Province. Finally taking the plunge this past December, 2010, Mr.Taylor flew into Cagayan del Oro City, in Misamis Oriental Province, just across the border from Lanao del Norte. Checking into room number 604 at a dive called "Lamar Inn," on the corner of Velez and JR Borja Streets, Mr.Taylor soon did his best to lose his life savings in record breaking time.
Registering as "Sam Taylor" he would spend his days meeting chatmates off of treasure hunting websites, trying to separate the wheat from the chaff. On Janurary 12, 2011 he met his "friend" from Lanao del Norte in front of a food stall near Divisoria Mall. The young man who presented himself was in the company of a second man whom he identified as a family member who would be driving them to a promising site. Innocently the very gullible Mr.Taylor joined his 2 new associates for a ride to what he believed would be the municipality of Opol in that same province, Misamis Oriental. Imagine his suprise then when the SUV pulled into the parking lot of a mall in Iligan City, in Lanao del Norte Province. Imagine how much more suprised Mr.Taylor was when told that they would now have to switch vehicles...and oooops, "here's a blindfold to protect my "treasure's" location."
Fast forward to February 11. Mr.Taylor's loving wife back in Ohio notified the US Embassy in Manilla that her husband just phoned her to inform her that he'd been kidnapped and that his captors were threatening to kill him unless their Ransom demand of P10 Million (roughly 225,000 US) was paid promptly. The Embassy, following SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) notified the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation, the top echelon of US Law Enforcement and the entity responsible for Americans victimised by crime in foreign nations). The FBI naturally contacted the Cagayan del Oro Police and lo and behold...What does the Cagayan del Oro PNP (Philippine National Police) do? They accuse Mr.Taylor of simply absconding to avoid having to pay a steep hotel bill. The Police Department's Chief, Sr.Supt.Antonio Montalba, reveals his ineptitude and crass unprofessionalism by badmouthing a man he knows nothing about. Making him look even more retarded is the fact that Mr.Taylor's passport was sitting in his room. How many foreigners are going to flee without their passports? A foreigner is unable to board a plane or a ferry without that crucial document. Unless one is aiming to spend the rest of his life growing yams while living in a nipa (bamboo framed thatched hut) they wouldn't be leaving THAT when trying to sneak out on a hotel bill.
How much was this huge bill anyway? It turns out that indeed, by Phillipine standards it was a very expencive tab. The total was P29,100 (roughly 690 US). One needs to understand that 690 US Dollars isn't a lot of money in the United States. The average monthly rent for a 1 bedroom apartment in New York City is close to 2,000 US Dollars. Therefore EVEN IF Mr.Taylor had been carrying his passport, as indeed foreigners always should (it is actually against the law not to do so), why would anyone with the slightest degree of sophistication imagine that person had decided to commit a major crime over such an insubstantial sum of money? One can easily understand why Mayor Emano finds his Chief of Police to be so disgusting.
By March Mr.Taylor's captors had realised that far from popular belief, not ALL Americans had cash puring out of their orifices. The kidnappers, guerillas from the MILF's 102 Base Command, lowered their initial demand of P10M to P300,000 (roughly 6,600 US) and still negotiations continued. After the requsite Proof of Life Videos (whatever happened to Polaroid snapshots of a victim holding a current newspaper) talks progressed more rapidly. At the end of March the negotiators settled on a measly P100,000 (roughly 2,200 US), or what is euphamistically known as a "Lodging Fee," to cover the victim's "Room and Board." At least that was the amount revealed in the media. The actual fee was P2 Million Pesos (roughly 44,000 US).
As a rule of thumb Philippine Authorities never publicly reveal Ransom details. At best they admit to a relatively paltry sum and play it off as the afore mentioned "Lodging" fee, as if victims ate 100,000 Pesos worth of boiled white rice and dried fish over the course of 2 months. In fact, intelligent people never notify the authorities when a loved one is kidnapped. Publicity mearely makes the captive more lucrative and drives up the Ransom. Often enough it is the local officials themselves, including local PNP (Philippine National Police) that have orchestrated the kidnappings. As I mentioned in a First Quarter 2011 entry on Kidnapping, a whole roster of local officials in Cotabato City have been charged in the Tsinoy (Chinese-Filipinos) Kidnappings that have plagued the city over the last 3 decades. None other than that municipality's local warlord, Vice Mayor Muslamin Sema found himself being criminally charged.
Mr.Taylor however can now try and put the whole sordid affair behind him. On April 4th, 2011 on the borders of Balo- and Marawi City, Lanao del Sur Province, the MILF handed a gaunt and pale Mr.Taylor to a slew of local officials led by Marawi's mayor who himself has been fingered (but not charged) in a rash of kidnappings affecting that part of yje island. Taken to Amai Pakpak Hospital in Marawi City for the requisite once over, he was then driven to Cagayan del Oro City for the (likewise) requisite photo opportunity in Mayor Emano's office. After the cameras were turned off the FBI took custody of a bewildered Mr.Taylor, poorer but at least alive.
The usual spiel is that a horde of "Yamashita's Gold" has been found. General Tomoyuki"Tiger of Malaya"Yamashita raped and pillaged all over Southeast Asia before shipping all the gold and jewels he had "confiscated" to Manila by way of Singapore. Once in the Philippines the war took a turn for the worse and so as Yamashita began retreating ahead of Allied troops he began depositing cachets in out of the way places, for retrieval in better times. Unfotunately for the General, Japan got its as* handed to them and Yamashita was captured. Worse still, he was branded a War Criminal (I hate when that happens) and was put on trial. Predictably General Yamashita was found guilty and on February 23, 1946 he was executed at Los Banos Prison Camp in Metro Manila.
While Mindanao WAS occupied, AND brutalised, by the Japanese during WWII, Yamashita never touched its shores. His legendary fighting retreat took place in Luzon. This is well worth mentioning because Yamashita is the name most often attached to supposed cachets of gold bullion, silver ingots and nickel babbits that enterprising swindlers claim to have discovered. An interesting riff on the theme is an American payroll in the form of Bearer Bonds or T-Notes, en route to USAFE guerilla forces on the island, crashed into an interior mountainside. There the plane and its contents sat undisturbed in the primeval rainforest until its latent discovery by primitive tribesmen with no concept of money, or modern concerns. Personally I find the latter story more believable and therefore I am a bit confused as to why such scammers are perpetually recycling the "gold bullion" nonsense as opposed to the "payroll" tale.
It is believed that the dynamic began on Luzon, indeed the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos claimed to have actually located Yamashita's treasure (giving rise to another Urban Legend, "Marcos' Gold." However THIS claim has been largely disproved and rationalised as an alibi for the vast fortune Marcos squirreled away. A fitting sidenote to these Luzon-centric tales is that almost always they involve Negrito Tribesmen. Originally the Negritos were mostly innocent actors, manipulated and duped themselves into portraying the "discovers" of whatever treasure was being peddled. Before long the Negritos themselves wised up and soon negated the role of lowlander middlemen and brokers, directly controlling the scam. I find that information gratifying on a certain level because if any one group should profit from the misery of whitemen it should be those whose land has been stolen BY whites (and in this case EVERYONE BUT NEGRITOS THEMSELVES) and who until the present live so far below the poverty line as to be virtually invisible. Don't get me wrong, I think theft is reprehensible EVEN IF it is entirely driven by the greed of the victim. It is just that I can't help admiring an iota of poetic justice..,
On Mindanao the usual scam involves fake gold ingots. In a very amateurish fashion the thieves take thinly gold plated bars, usually with lead cores, and then pass them off to naïve treasure hunters. To understand how gullible victims are, as heavy as lead may be, it is not nearly as heavy as actual gold. To show it in an even more ridiculous fashion, one recent scam used gold plated aluminum ingots! Aluminum is many more times lighter than steel, which is itself STILL three times as light as pure gold! Yet, after a scratch test which always registers positive for gold, we see person, after person, after person getting conned out of their money.
Just a few weeks ago, on February 28, 2011 a couple in Davao City were lured into such a scam. Despicably it was the wife's own aunt who led them like lambs to the slaughter. Florentino and Mailyn Capuyan allowed themselves to stupidly follow the advice of Marilyn's aunt, Erlinda P.Fernandez. Fernandez knew that the couple were looking into investing their savings and so arranged for the them to get in on a "great deal." After a quick phone call by Marilyn's salivating auntie they were given an address and told to immediately proceed to the home of Inday Mansalita. Ms.Mansalita, a Lumad (member of a Hilltribe, usually Animist) was "brokering" the cachet "discovered by fellow Lumads. Probably trebling with excitement...AND GREED, the couple wasted no time in driving to Malibog District on the outskirts of Davao City and found the Mansalita home.
Having agreed, amazingly on the phone, to buy 1 ingot and a gold Buddha statue for P1.7M (roughly 33,000 US) Florentino intelligenty asked to test the goods before handing over the paperbag full of pesos. When he picked up the ingot, which was manufactured out of an aluminum core, he realised it wasn't genuine (gee, it FINALLY occurred to him) and refused to fork over six times the average annual Mindanowan salary. At that point Inday's 7 male friends popped out with bolos (machetes) and explained that IF the couple didn't want to buy the ingot and statue, that was their perogative. However, their money was staying. To add insult to injury Marilyn had her P6,000 watch, P32,000 worth of jewlery and her P2,500 cellphone taken as well. At least they lived to tell about it, and to charge all the players including Auntie Erlinda.
In kidnap victim Milton Strowell Taylor's case, he was spending months online, chatting up the bottom feeders lurking around treasure hunting websites. These sites are full of con artists and the fish they fry. One person spending a lot of time talking to Mr.Taylor was a man from Lanao del Norte Province. Finally taking the plunge this past December, 2010, Mr.Taylor flew into Cagayan del Oro City, in Misamis Oriental Province, just across the border from Lanao del Norte. Checking into room number 604 at a dive called "Lamar Inn," on the corner of Velez and JR Borja Streets, Mr.Taylor soon did his best to lose his life savings in record breaking time.
Registering as "Sam Taylor" he would spend his days meeting chatmates off of treasure hunting websites, trying to separate the wheat from the chaff. On Janurary 12, 2011 he met his "friend" from Lanao del Norte in front of a food stall near Divisoria Mall. The young man who presented himself was in the company of a second man whom he identified as a family member who would be driving them to a promising site. Innocently the very gullible Mr.Taylor joined his 2 new associates for a ride to what he believed would be the municipality of Opol in that same province, Misamis Oriental. Imagine his suprise then when the SUV pulled into the parking lot of a mall in Iligan City, in Lanao del Norte Province. Imagine how much more suprised Mr.Taylor was when told that they would now have to switch vehicles...and oooops, "here's a blindfold to protect my "treasure's" location."
Fast forward to February 11. Mr.Taylor's loving wife back in Ohio notified the US Embassy in Manilla that her husband just phoned her to inform her that he'd been kidnapped and that his captors were threatening to kill him unless their Ransom demand of P10 Million (roughly 225,000 US) was paid promptly. The Embassy, following SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) notified the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation, the top echelon of US Law Enforcement and the entity responsible for Americans victimised by crime in foreign nations). The FBI naturally contacted the Cagayan del Oro Police and lo and behold...What does the Cagayan del Oro PNP (Philippine National Police) do? They accuse Mr.Taylor of simply absconding to avoid having to pay a steep hotel bill. The Police Department's Chief, Sr.Supt.Antonio Montalba, reveals his ineptitude and crass unprofessionalism by badmouthing a man he knows nothing about. Making him look even more retarded is the fact that Mr.Taylor's passport was sitting in his room. How many foreigners are going to flee without their passports? A foreigner is unable to board a plane or a ferry without that crucial document. Unless one is aiming to spend the rest of his life growing yams while living in a nipa (bamboo framed thatched hut) they wouldn't be leaving THAT when trying to sneak out on a hotel bill.
How much was this huge bill anyway? It turns out that indeed, by Phillipine standards it was a very expencive tab. The total was P29,100 (roughly 690 US). One needs to understand that 690 US Dollars isn't a lot of money in the United States. The average monthly rent for a 1 bedroom apartment in New York City is close to 2,000 US Dollars. Therefore EVEN IF Mr.Taylor had been carrying his passport, as indeed foreigners always should (it is actually against the law not to do so), why would anyone with the slightest degree of sophistication imagine that person had decided to commit a major crime over such an insubstantial sum of money? One can easily understand why Mayor Emano finds his Chief of Police to be so disgusting.
By March Mr.Taylor's captors had realised that far from popular belief, not ALL Americans had cash puring out of their orifices. The kidnappers, guerillas from the MILF's 102 Base Command, lowered their initial demand of P10M to P300,000 (roughly 6,600 US) and still negotiations continued. After the requsite Proof of Life Videos (whatever happened to Polaroid snapshots of a victim holding a current newspaper) talks progressed more rapidly. At the end of March the negotiators settled on a measly P100,000 (roughly 2,200 US), or what is euphamistically known as a "Lodging Fee," to cover the victim's "Room and Board." At least that was the amount revealed in the media. The actual fee was P2 Million Pesos (roughly 44,000 US).
As a rule of thumb Philippine Authorities never publicly reveal Ransom details. At best they admit to a relatively paltry sum and play it off as the afore mentioned "Lodging" fee, as if victims ate 100,000 Pesos worth of boiled white rice and dried fish over the course of 2 months. In fact, intelligent people never notify the authorities when a loved one is kidnapped. Publicity mearely makes the captive more lucrative and drives up the Ransom. Often enough it is the local officials themselves, including local PNP (Philippine National Police) that have orchestrated the kidnappings. As I mentioned in a First Quarter 2011 entry on Kidnapping, a whole roster of local officials in Cotabato City have been charged in the Tsinoy (Chinese-Filipinos) Kidnappings that have plagued the city over the last 3 decades. None other than that municipality's local warlord, Vice Mayor Muslamin Sema found himself being criminally charged.
Mr.Taylor however can now try and put the whole sordid affair behind him. On April 4th, 2011 on the borders of Balo- and Marawi City, Lanao del Sur Province, the MILF handed a gaunt and pale Mr.Taylor to a slew of local officials led by Marawi's mayor who himself has been fingered (but not charged) in a rash of kidnappings affecting that part of yje island. Taken to Amai Pakpak Hospital in Marawi City for the requisite once over, he was then driven to Cagayan del Oro City for the (likewise) requisite photo opportunity in Mayor Emano's office. After the cameras were turned off the FBI took custody of a bewildered Mr.Taylor, poorer but at least alive.
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