Thursday, March 13, 2003
Kidnap pals 'killed' Japanese suspect
By Garry A. Cabotaje
Sun.Star Staff Reporter
A FIVE-MAN group, including a Japanese “con artist,” was identified as responsible for the kidnapping and subsequent killing of 70-year-old Japanese tourist Ryohei Sato, the Police Regional Office (PRO) 7 yesterday revealed.
Six weeks since Sato was reported missing, police officials admitted for the first time about what happened to the Japanese.
The three major players in the kidnap-slay of Sato were only out to extort the Japanese tourist through a fake gold bar racket.
It evolved into a kidnapping after they sensed they could get more money from Sato, who suggested that a daughter in Japan could finance the transaction.
The Japanese man’s “untimely killing” happened after a news item in the local papers identified another Japanese national as being involved in the kidnapping.
He turned out to be Hiroshi Nagai, who was also killed when two prime suspects, Glenn Toto and Alfredo Bacladon, were about to dump Sato’s body into the sea off Catmon, Cebu.
Sato died after Nagai injected him with Malathion, a pesticide.
After Sato’s daughter, Yoko, deposited six million yen (about P2.6 million) at Allied Bank’s Lapu-Lapu City branch, the suspects managed to make 20 withdrawals totaling P340,000.
The withdrawals were made only through an ATM machine, which allowed a maximum withdrawal of P20,000 per day.
The ransom money has a remaining balance of P2.3 million after the ATM card was blocked.
Toto and Romy Lato are now in the custody of the police, said PRO 7 Chief Rolando Garcia.
The PRO 7 is planning to recommend that Lato, Sato’s regular tricycle driver, be allowed to become a state witness.
Lato’s wife has been frantically looking for her husband since Thursday last week. She again went to PRO 7 yesterday but got only an assurance from an intelligence officer that her husband was okay.
Nagai reportedly forced Sato to take sleeping pills before injecting him with Malathion inside a safehouse in Catmon, Cebu last Feb. 12 at 7 p.m.
Sato struggled but could not move because his hands were tied behind his back, a PRO 7 investigation report stated.
Nagai was on board a boat with Toto and Bacladon when his two accomplices shot him with an Ingram machine pistol.
The two later dumped the bodies of Sato and Nagai into the sea off Barangay Macaas, Catmon early dawn of Feb. 13.
Recovery operations off Catmon will continue, depending on the availability of Coast Guard resources.
Toto also goes by the names of Jerry Perez and Carlos Bongabong, of Lingi-on, Talakag, Bukidnon. Bacladon also used aliases as Boy Dy, Lester and James Fernandez Yap, the name of a bank account where the ransom money was deposited to the Allied Bank Lapu-Lapu City branch.
Toto and Bacladon tied the foreigners together and used a rock as a sinker before throwing the bodies into the water, the police report said.
Navy frogmen launched recovery operations over the weekend but their search proved futile. The dumping site is 60 to 120 feet deep in murky waters.
Police are now coordinating with the Coast Guard to use its search and rescue vessel in looking for the remains of Sato and Nagai.
In the same report, the PRO 7 also partly blamed the “untimely death” of Sato on premature publications of news stories, as media reports caused the kidnap suspects to panic.
Because of a “gentleman agreement” with PRO 7 officials, Sun.Star didn’t play up the kidnapping incident, supposedly a good material for a banner story.
After news stories came out starting Feb. 8, the suspects, including Nagai, panicked and warned the Sato family back in Japan not to call the police, the report said.
Nagai became too nervous that he burned all his belongings that would expose his nationality. This after reports said a Japanese national was also involved in the Sato kidnapping.
The suspects contacted Yoko, Sato’s daughter in Japan, to call the staff of Buyong Hotel in Lapu-Lapu City where Sato was billeted, and tell them that her father was just touring around Capiz province.
The police, however, already knew that Sato was kidnapped.
The two other alleged conspirators are Jojo Initan, the group’s logistics man and Lato, an unlicensed tourist guide or hupo-hupo and regular tricycle driver of Sato.
Initan reportedly prepared the safehouse in Sitio Laplaya, Barangay Corazon in Catmon. The suspects rented a beachhouse with two months advance payment at P3,000 per month.
The police are still tracking down the “minor” players in the group, who, in one way or another, participated in the kidnapping of Sato.
The PRO 7 refused to say if Bacladon and Initan were arrested in Manila. The duo left for Manila after the killing of Sato and Nagai.
Garcia advised foreign tourists not to be “too trusting, not even with your own kind, as they might be con men.” “Get the services of legitimate tour guides,” he said.
(March 13, 2003 issue)
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