3 more kidnapping cases readied vs KFR leader

LINGAYEN, Pangasinan — Three more cases of kidnapping will be filed by the police against the suspected leader of a kidnap-for-ransom (KFR) group arrested by joint elements of the Police Anti-Crime Emergency Response (PACER) and the provincial and regional police while swimming in a beach in Barangay Arnedo, Bolinao town last Wednesday.

Superintendent Ronald Lee, chief of investigation and case monitoring of PACER, told The STAR that the families of the three victims of Jessie Pepino, who heads the Pepino KFR Group, went to Camp Crame the other day and positively identified the arrested suspect as their abductor.

Superintendent Rolando Magno, chief of the provincial police’s special operations group, told The STAR in a separate interview that they expect and encourage more of the group’s victims to come out in the open and identify them so that proper charges could be filed. The police said Pepino has about 15 abduction cases nationwide.

Both Lee and Magno led the operatives in arresting Pepino.

When Pepino was nabbed by PACER, the authorities were armed by an arrest warrant for the kidnapping of a Chinese-Filipino between 1997 and 1998.

Chief Superintendent Leopoldo Bataoil, Region 1 police director, said most of the victims of the suspect are prominent Chinese-Filipino businessmen.

Pepino’s elder brother, Jerry, is a also a convicted kidnapper jailed at the National Bilibid Prisons in Muntinlupa City.

Jerry was arrested in late 1997 by special project Alpha in Cebu. Jessie, on the other hand, was nabbed in March 2006 by the police’s Aviation Security Group (ASG) in Cebu for illegal possession of firearms and possession of fake identification cards of ISAFP and police, as well as fake letter and mission order.

He immediately posted bail and was released. The ASG laterlearned that Jessie has a pending kidnap-for-ransom case.

Jerry headed the Baling-baling KFR gang whose members mostly hail from Surigao del Sur.

After his arrest, his brother Jessie took over the group’s leadership and changed its name to Pepino KFR Group.

Jessie has a house and lot in Barangay Culang here where he spends vacations. — With Myds Supnad