Combined elements of the Philippine National Police Anti-kidnapping group (PNP-AKG) and Bulacan Police Provincial office busted a Nigerian kidnap-for-ransom group operating in the country and preying on fellow Africans on Tuesday, June 16, Journal Online reported.
According to Alfred Dalizon’s report, the police nabbed Ifeanyi Augustine Chinwueba, Martin Okofor and Austin Chukwueba Agu for abducting two fellow Nigerians on the same day the victims arrived in the country to enroll in a university in San Fernando City, La Union.
Sr. Supt. Roberto Fajardo, PNP-AKG director, said Nigerian students Osuoha Ikenna Amaefule and Onyedeke Ferdinand Munachiso were abducted by the three suspects on June 9 shortly after their arrival in Manila via Turkish Airlines.
Fajardo said the Philippine Embassy in the United Kingdom received a complaint from a London-based lawyer named Aloysius Esonau Osuji that his two nephews were kidnapped in Manila.
Osuji told Philippine Embassy officials that the abductors demanded 6 million Nigerian dollars (roughly P1.358 million) in exchange for his two nephews’ safe release.
The PNP-AKG immediately launched an operation to locate the whereabouts of the victims.
However, the victims managed to escape from their captors after a week in captivity and went directly to the Pulilan Municipal Police Station in Bulacan to report the incident.
The victims led the police to the suspects’ hideout in Plaridel, Bulacan where the three Africans were nabbed.
The PNP-AKG investigators, in coordination with the Interpol, Department of Foreign Affairs and the Bureau of Immigration, are now conducting an in-depth probe to study the backgrounds of the suspects.
A criminal case in relation to Article 267 of the Revised Penal Code will be filed before the Department of Justice against the Nigerian abductors.