Philippine police rescue Chinese student whose finger was cut off by kidnappers
The kidnappers, who included former Filipino police officers and soldiers, abandoned the 14-year-old student in a busy street in Manila
Philippine police have safely recovered a Chinese student who was kidnapped by a Chinese-led gang that cut off his finger in a bid to force his parents to pay a huge ransom, officials said on Wednesday.
Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla said the parents rejected the ransom demand but the kidnappers, who included former Filipino police officers and soldiers, abandoned the 14-year-old student on Tuesday night in the middle of a busy street in metropolitan Manila when police closed in on their vehicle.
The February 20 kidnapping of the student after attending classes at a British school in Manila set off alarms due to its brazenness and brutality. The student’s driver was also killed in the incident.
Remulla told reporters that the student’s family and the Chinese leader of the kidnappers allegedly were former operators of lucrative online gambling outfits, which flourished under former president Rodrigo Duterte but were ordered shut last year by his successor, Ferdinand Marcos Jnr.
The online gambling outfits, which operated in the Philippines, Cambodia and other Southeast Asian countries, have catered to large numbers of clients in China, where gambling is prohibited.
“We know that this crime involved a Chinese against a Chinese,” Remulla said, adding that the student’s family and the kidnappers communicated in Chinese via the WeChat app.