Chinese men accused of kidnapping to be freed

Police present to the media the 2 Chinese nationals, who were arrested on Thursday dawn, March 5, 2020, for allegedly kidnapping three Chinese workers in Barangay Mactan, Lapu-Lapu City. |CDN Digital file photo

CEBU CITY, Philippines — Two Chinese nationals, who have been detained for allegedly kidnapping three fellow Chinese nationals, may be released from detention tomorrow, on March 7, 2020, if the victims will not file a complaint against them.

Brigadier General Albert Ignatius Ferro, Police Regional Office in Central Visayas (PRO-7) director, said they could only detain the two Chinese nationals identified as A Gui and Xiao Fan without formal charges for 36 hours, which would lapse on Saturday.

Chinese victims uninterested

Ferro, who met the victims last March 5, 2020, said that this would likely be the case since the victims had shown disinterest in filing a case against the suspects.

“There’s an issue we are trying to settle, because it seems that the victims don’t want to file cases,” said Ferro.

Ferro said that maybe the victims were afraid to file charges because of the possible involvement of syndicates back in their country.

Deporting

Ferro said they were considering deporting the two Chinese nationals as the best solution to the issue if the victims would not want to pursue filing criminal charges against them.

In previous reports, Ferro mentioned that the two Chinese men may be members of of a syndicate group given that they were able to pull off a kidnapping stunt in a foreign country.

The two Chinese nationals were arrested in Lapu-Lapu City on Thursday dawn, March 5, for allegedly illegally detaining three fellow Chinese nationals inside a subdivison in Soong, Barangay Mactan. Lapu-Lapu City.

Police Colonel Carlito Baja, Lapu-Lapu Police Office (LLCPO) chief, said the two suspects allegedly contacted the victims’ families and were allegedly asking for a ransom of 170,000 Chinese renmenbi (RMB) or around P1.24 million. /dbs