Manhunt on for Bundol Gang's NAIA tipster

MANILA, Philippines - The National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO) is hot on the trail of a person at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) supplying information on potential victims to the Bundol Gang, an official said yesterday.

NCRPO director Chief Superintendent Nicanor Bartolome said they are coordinating with the airport police to unmask and arrest the tipster of the Bundol Gang, whose modus operandi is to follow potential victims from the NAIA. The robbers would then rear-end the victim’s vehicle and attack when the occupants of the vehicle stop to look at the damage from the collision.

“We are vigorously pursuing the tipster angle and we have coordinated with the airport police to neutralize him,” said Bartolome.

The gang’s alleged leader, Allan Aristorenas, and suspected members Robert Bonzon, Felimon Borillo, and Jeffrey Martinez were arrested this week in Parañaque City and Pasay City.

Superintendent Remus Medina, head of the NCRPO’s regional police intelligence and operation unit (RPIOU) said the suspects, during tactical interrogation, admitted that somebody had been tipping them off about Filipinos and tourists arriving from abroad.

Medina said they are now in the thick of efforts to arrest the gang’s tipster but refused to give details. At least 12 hits were traced to the gang this year alone.

Two of the gang’s victims, Gregorio San Diego and Ruben Frogoso, strongly believe that somebody tipped them off to the suspects.

“My car was heavily tinted and they could not see us from the outside. However, they were so sure that it was us who were their targets,” San Diego said in an interview.

San Diego, 58, and his wife, Emma, 54, had just fetched their daughter, Kriza, from the airport when the suspects on board Frogoso’s Fortuner rear-ended their vehicle along C-5 Road in Quezon City.

San Diego said five of the gang members joined them in the Montero while there were five others in the Fortuner.

“Inside the car, the suspects even commented that I was good at driving because they find it hard to catch up with me,” he said.

The couple and their daughter were dumped in Manila and Parañaque City but not before the gang took their valuables and belongings.

Frogoso said he usually has his vehicles washed at a car wash shop in Barangay Putatan, Muntinlupa City, and it was there that the robbers abducted him at gunpoint on Oct. 29.

“There was another luxury vehicle near my car but it was me whom they took. They know it was my routine to be in that car wash shop before going to work,” said Frogoso.

He said he was dumped in Imus, Cavite but not before the gang took at least P200,000 cash and important belongings.

Another victim, Mark Vincent Adrias, is not sure whether somebody tipped him off to the gang. He said he and his driver, Jonjon, were busy unloading equipment used by his sister during a product presentation when the gang forcibly entered their residence in Tanza, Cavite.

The suspects took off their vehicle, cash and important belongings worth at least P1 million.

San Diego and Adrias positively identified the four arrested suspects as among those who victimized them, while Frogoso pointed to Borillor as the one who pistol-whipped him when he tried to put up a fight.