Fake gold bar gang members kill Canadian

MABALACAT, Pampanga — A 60-year-old Canadian national was shot dead yesterday morning reportedly by two Aeta members of a syndicate selling fake gold bars in Barangay Tabun here, police said.

Senior Superintendent Dindo Espina, provincial police director, said workers at a sand quarrying site in Tabun found Canadian Larry Edward Parker dead inside his Toyota Revo with license plate XSZ 311.

Parker, who temporarily resided at the Sun Garden Hotel in Tarlac City, had a gunshot wound in the nape.

Espina said Melody Atalisay, a friend of Parker, claimed that he was to meet in Tabun, which lies at the town’s boundary with Bamban, Tarlac, with two Aetas she identified only as Jimmy and Olgy.

Espina said the two Aetas apparently belong to the so-called "Salaginto Gang," which sells gold bars they supposedly found in Mt. Pinatubo to unsuspecting victims.

The gang has been operating in communities at the foot of Mt. Pinatubo for years now. Their members include Aetas who pretend to be finders of the fabled Yamashita treasure.

"They present genuine gold to their prospective victims. They use gold-plated bars to lure their victims to meet with them in a remote area supposedly to show more purported gold bars. But they show up armed," Espino said.

Probers said Parker could have found the bars to be merely gold-plated and did not push through with the transaction.

The gang has gypped many businessmen and tourists, including a governor in Central Luzon.

Their victims, however, usually ask the police to keep their embarrassing ordeals a secret.