Negotiations on for Agusan captives – cops

SAN FRANCISCO, Agusan del Sur — The Caraga police said yesterday negotiations were ongoing for the release of a Japanese interpreter and a Manila-based trader who were seized by their supposed gold business contacts here last March 23.

This developed as provincial administrator Christopher Lindo disclosed that a certain Jimmy, who introduced himself as an aide of Sen. Panfilo Lacson, called him up last March 29 seeking help for trader Joseph Rivale who, he said, is his cousin.

Lindo said he immediately notified Task Force Racer of the Caraga police about the abduction.

Rivale and Japanese interpreter Juanita Ohiyoma, along with an unnamed Japanese businessman and other companions, reportedly arrived here aboard a taxi they had rented in Davao City and checked in at the Laguna Lodge on the morning of March 22.

The group later left reportedly to meet their contacts for a gold transaction but everyone, except for Rivale and Ohiyoma, returned that night.

The following day, someone described as about 20 years old and about five feet, three inches tall, approached the Japanese trader and asked for money.

Reports said the Japanese trader then withdrew money from an ATM machine and gave it to the taxi driver, a certain Sol, who in turn handed it over to the person.

On March 24, the Japanese trader reportedly checked out of Laguna Lodge and boarded a vehicle bound for Davao City, with Sol’s taxi trailing behind.

Caraga police director Alberto Rama Olario said his men already knew the identities of the abductors and that negotiations for the release of Rivale and Ohiyoma were ongoing.

Olario suspects that the victims and their abductors knew each other because of previous transactions.

Probably, he said, "It was only this time that their business dealings went sour."