Kidnap-for-ransom group member arrested in Leyte

A member of a kidnap-for-ransom group responsible for the murder of a retired pilot and his driver in 2008 was arrested after a raid was undertaken in the suspect’s house in Balo, Leyte over the weekend. Mariano de Leon, alias Spider, surrendered to the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) after the unit’s members swooped down on the residence of the suspect’s wife on J.P. Rizal Street in Bato town at around 6 p.m. on Sunday, Police Director Leon Nilo dela Cruz, who is also CIDG director, said. The suspect "is facing double murder case and has a reward of P300,000," said dela Cruz. De Leon was arrested after retired pilot Demosthenes Cañete, 67, and his driver, Allan Garay, 26, was abducted at the Land Transportation Office compound in Dasmarinas, Cavite. Garay was immediately shot to death while Cañete’s body was found near a megadike in Pampanga on July 2. At first, the kidnappers demanded ransom money worth P20 million but later accepted P973,000 from Cañete’s family three days after the group killed him. It was later established that the kidnap-slay was planned by the Abogado-Cautiver KFR group named after its leaders PO1 Dondon Abogado and Chief Inspector Exequiel Cautiver, both assigned to the police’s elite Special Action Force. Later, Cautiver, then SAF training officer and a member of the Philippine National Police Academy (PNPA) Class 1996, was collared along with former Dasmariñas Vice Mayor Victor Carungcong; Alejandrito Entolizo, Jr., 52, Barangay Tanod of Barangay Bangkal, Makati City; Gary Pateo, 35, a pedicab driver from Makati City. Entolizo and Pateo were arrested as they were collecting ransom money. Both later implicated Cautiver who was immediately placed under custody. Cautiver, whose wife Chief Inspector Penelope Cautiver was also included in double murder charges over alleged conspiracy, reportedly then claimed that the whole abduction was planned by Carungcong. Carungcong, the brother-in-law of Cañete, reportedly hired the group so that he could control the emission center and drug diagnostic center owned by the latter. With the arrest of de Leon, only Abogado remains at large. De Leon was flown yesterday from Leyte to Metro Manila and will be presented before a Pasay City court where he will be facing double murder charges. - RJAB Jr., GMANews.TV