Another Betti Sy kidnap suspect snared

JARO, Leyte — Police captured Sunday a seventh suspect in last November’s kidnapping and murder of Coca Cola executive Betti Chua Sy during a raid in a house in Barangay Macanip here.

Franco Artoza, alias "Anko" and a member of the "Waray-Waray Artoza gang," was arrested on the strength of a court-issued warrant of arrest, said Chief Superintendent Dionesio Benito Coloma, Eastern Visayas police commander.

Police said the 26-year-old Artoza admitted participation in the kidnapping of 32-year-old Sy in La Loma, Quezon City last Nov. 17, but denied taking part in her murder.

The arrest of Aroza came after police picked up another gangman, Fernando Niegos, on New Year’s Day in another house in the same barangay.

During interrogation, Niegos, who denied participation in Sy’s kidnapping and murder, told police where Aroza was hiding, and promised to reveal everything he knows about the Waray-Waray Artoza gang.

Niegos told police he was in Leyte when his gang snatched Sy in Quezon City and brought her to a hideout in Cavite, where she was believed to have died due to excessive bleeding.

Niegos said he received P130,000 as his share in the ransom during the gang’s last kidnapping operation in which he had participated.

He used the money to build a house in his hometown, Niegos added.

Less than 48 hours after Sy’s body was found at a Parañaque City roadside on Nov. 20, police arrested three suspects in the kidnap-slaying.

Ramon Dimol, Ernesto Palla and Romeo Vallano were arrested in their hideout in Trece Martires City in Cavite.

Parañaque City police director Superintendent Ronald Estilles said the suspects were arrested after Vallano, who admitted driving the getaway vehicle, surrendered to the police after the other kidnappers threatened his life.

Vallano told police that he was involved in Sy’s kidnapping and that his cohorts, including the brains of the abduction, were hiding out in Cavite.

Estilles then formed a 15-man team to accompany Vallano to the kidnappers’ hideout at Heritage Homes subdivision in Trece Martires City.

However, the three other suspects, who were identified only as Eddie, Babes and JR, escaped and are being hunted down by police.

Estilles said his men, plus four other members of the Trece Martires police, found packing tape similar to the tape found wrapped around Sy’s body, a handkerchief that seemed to have been used to gag her, and hair strands.

Estilles said the kidnappers then brought Sy, who was apparently already bleeding to death, to Trece Martires.

It appeared that Sy had already died because of blood loss but the suspects called her family Monday night to demand ransom of P10 million, , Estilles added.

Enraged Chinese-Filipinos have demanded justice as they mourned the death of Sy, who was the 156th victim of kidnapping this year.

Sy of Barangay Nagkaisang Nayon in Novaliches, Quezon City, was the commercial finance manager of Coca-Cola Export Corp.

She was reportedly on her way to work when she was abducted at around 9:30 a.m. on Nov. 17 by five men on Cuenca street in Barangay Biak-na-Bato in Quezon City.

Witnesses said Sy was shot twice in the right leg when she apparently refused to open the door of her Toyota RAV4, with license plates XHZ-210, to the perpetrators.

Three of the five men then carried the already unconscious Sy into their Toyota Tamaraw FX vehicle with license plates UFR-225.

The FX, a taxicab registered under Jansen Transport, was found at the suspects’ hideout in Trece Martires.

Police said there were bloodstains on the front seats of Sy’s sports utility vehicle and bullet holes in both front doors of the SUV whose windows were also shattered.

Police also found a slug underneath the steering wheel, and pieces of white tissue soaked with blood.