3 auto thieves nabbed in Tacurong

COTABATO CITY, Philippines --- Covert police operatives arrested three carjackers in Tacurong City Tuesday and seized from them a stolen motorcycle whose owner they killed two days earlier in Lake Sebu town in South Cotabato.

Supt. Junny Buenacosa, chief of the Tacurong City police, said the suspects, Mho Balicocos Dalingdigan, 26; Dante Fundo Atam, 35; and Morid Cadatuan, 34, did not resist arrest after sensing that they had been surrounded by more than a dozen agents while the suspects were dining in a roadside eatery.

Buenacosa said the suspects also voluntarily yielded a red Honda 125 XRM motorcycle owned by Aban
Beamar, an ethnic Tiboli tribesman, residing in Lake Sebu town, some 30 kilometers southwest of Tacurong City.

Buenacosa, citing intelligence reports, said Dalingdigan, Atam and Cadatuan had killed the driver of the motorcycle recovered from them  because the victim tried to fight them off.

Police intelligence units in the adjoining provinces of Sultan Kudarat and South Cotabato have confirmed that the three motorcycle thieves were behind more than 30 attacks in the two areas in recent months.

Senior police intelligence officials, who asked not to be identified, said Dalindingan and Atam are both from Barangay Lamba in Banga town in South Cotabato, while Cadatuan hails from the municipality of Polomolok in the same province.

Buenacosa said before turning over the suspects to the Lake Sebu municipal police, the three will undergo  documentation and tactical interrogation.