Probers eye Aman Future scam link in Medina attack

CEBU, Philippines - Police investigators believe that Dr. Rico Medina’s link in the Aman Future scam has something to do with the recent attempt on his life.

Police Regional Office (PRO) 7 director Marcelo Garbo Jr. said that the police are looking at this angle as possible motive. Garbo said he has tasked the Cebu City Police Office to look into more deeply Medina’s link in the Aman scam.

According to Garbo, Medina may have owed money from the people behind last Monday’s attack against him and his family.

Garbo said that they considered the incident as robbery extortion and technically kidnapping, but the perpetrators are not professionals and members of a kidnapping-for-ransom syndicate.

 â€œDefinitely safe ang Cebu City and other parts of region seven as regards to the happenings of kidnapping and other crime incidents,” Garbo assured.

He said that the people behind the attack have no intention of killing Medina.

Chief Insp. Romeo Santander, chief of CCPO’s City Intelligence Branch, who leads the investigation, said they are still trying to identify the four remaining perpetrators.

He said they are now hunting down one of the culprits, a man from Mindanao who rented the vehicles used in last Monday’s attack on Medina and his family.

Santander admitted they have difficulty moving forward in their investigation since the victims, who can give lots of information on the incident, are not yet cooperating.

“Dili g’yud ta katulin kay di pa ma-istorya ang Medina family and we respect that kay na-trauma pa sila sa nahitabo,” he said.

Santander added that “as soon as possible we will be obtaining information (from them) and then that’s the time that we will file a case. They gave us assurance man that they will talk to us.”

The police will be showing to the victims the photo of the suspect that they have identified to get confirmation.

Authorities are now guarding possible exit points to prevent the culprits from leaving Cebu.

The CIB chief has already ruled out the possibility that the attack was staged.

Medina was with his wife and son and a bodyguard onboard a Toyota Fortuner when at least five armed men fired at them in Barangay Labangon past midnight last Monday. No one was hit during the incident.

The victims managed to drive away from the assailants, who then later abandoned the vehicles in different areas in Cebu City on the same day.

Medina, who owns six colleges in Mindanao and owner of Medina College in Ozamiz City, is reportedly one of the 38 people involved in the Aman Future scam that has victimized 15,000 people in the Visayas and Mindanao. — (FREEMAN)