No. 2 most wanted in Vizcaya arrested in Quezon City

MANILA, Philippines - The second most wanted criminal in Nueva Vizcaya said to be the gunman of a kidnap-for-ransom gang in Luzon was nabbed by police in Quezon City Tuesday afternoon.

Armed with an arrest warrant and only a description of the suspect who had a scar in his face and a cut off right pointfinger, operatives of the Quezon City Police District’s City Hall Complex Police Office and the Bayom­bong police arrested Paul Clores alias Poly or Apolonio who was working at a construction site inside the compound of the Veterans Memorial Medical Center.

“He (Clores) even attempted to hide these descriptions by wrapping a shirt around his face. He was also wearing gloves. However by that time, he had been identified and pointed to us by his co-workers,” Chief Inspector Ritchie Claravall, chief of the QCPD-CHCPO said during a press conference yesterday.

According to Claravall, they conducted a stake out at the hospital from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. when the suspect was finally arrested.

The arrest was based on a warrant issued by a Tarlac court for a case of kidnap-for-ransom filed against Clores and three other suspects.

QCPD director Senior Superintendent Elmo San Diego said a member of the group was arrested following the discovery of four bodies of slain Indian nationals in Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya in 2007.

“Because of the testimony of their arrested cohort, the four were charged in court,” San Die­go said.

San Diego noted that the gang, called the Apolinario Flores Group, has been tagged in a number of kidnap-for-ransom slay cases in Regions 1, 2, and 3.

“After getting the ransom money from the camp of the victim, the group would then kill their victim,” San Diego said.

Chief Inspector Ernesto Achansar, Bayom­bong chief of police, said Clores has been listed as the number 2 most wanted man in Nueva Vizcaya.

Achansar’s office received information that Clores has been staying in Quezon City posing as a construction worker.

They coordinated with Claravall’s group, resulting in the suspect’s arrest.

According to San Diego, they suspect that Clores was out to scout for a prospective victim in the city, noting that there was information that the other members of the group are in the metropolis.

San Diego said another Indian national acts as the group’s tipster on any new prospective victim.

Clores, meanwhile, denied the allegations and said the other suspect just implicated him for no apparent reason. He was even showing a passport, noting he was a former OFW.