Laguna boy kidnappers seek P5-M ransom

Sta. Rosa, LAGUNA — Unidentified callers have demanded P5 million for the safe release of a Japanese boy who was abducted by five ski-mask wearing armed men inside their own home in a posh village here last week.

This cropped up yesterday even as witnesses refused to cooperate with police investigators in tracking down the abductors of Takeshi Adachi, 6, son of a Filipino-Japanese couple.

Informed sources said the unidentified caller also warned Adachi’s mother, Ma. Teresa, not to report to police authorities in order to keep the boy alive. The caller assured her that her son is in good health.

Initial investigation disclosed that Adachi was abducted after Ma. Teresa failed to hand over cash money to five ski-mask wearing men who barged into her house at about 10:30 p.m. last April 15.

Before fleeing, the abductors drowned Ma. Teresa’s younger sister Nancy Vargas, 33, and her stay-in driver Nelso Aglahi, in a bath tub and hogtied in separate rooms Ma. Teresa, her 13-year-old daughter Aya, and Nancy’s daughters Rosely, 9, and Roselyn, 12, with plastic straws.

The abductors carted away a diamond ring, a rice cooker and a mini-component and fled using the family’s Toyota Revo van.

Police expressed the belief that Vargas and Aglahi were killed because they knew the abductors’ identities.

Police admitted they had difficulty in investigating the case since not only Ma. Teresa but also Nancy’s husband, Alex Vargas, an employee of the Land Transportation Office (LTO) in Quezon City, refused to talk.

Hours after the crime, the Vargas patriarch even refused the entry of police and media men into the crime scene. — Rene Alviar