MANILA, Philippines—He was a teenager when he started stealing cars. Branded as “very ambitious,” he later struck out on his own and formed a gang that eventually bore his name.

That was how a source who said he was a former colleague of Alvin Flores portrayed the underworld kingpin who led the raid on a Rolex shop in Makati’s classy Greenbelt 5 mall on Oct. 18. Eleven days later, Flores was reported killed in a gun battle with government agents in Cebu City.

In between his criminal forays, Flores supposedly even became a government “asset,” or informant.

Then his luck ran out.

“When a criminal like Alvin becomes an ‘asset’ of the authorities for any operation or mission, one should expect that a day would come that he would die or be killed (mapapatay o papatayin ka rin),” said the colleague, who calls himself “Ka Jony.”

In an interview, Ka Jony gave this reporter a glimpse into the shadowy past of the man whom police said was the brains behind the Alvin Flores Group (AFG), a gang linked to big-time robberies.

Ka Jony, a caretaker at a farm in a southern Luzon province where fighting cocks are bred, requested that only his initials—J.P. in real life—be used for this story, citing personal security concerns.

“I am a mere caretaker in this farm,” he said in Filipino. “I don’t want my colleagues here to be alarmed because of my past. After all, all that I am telling is the story of Alvin but I don’t know how others would react.”

How it began

By Ka Jony’s account, Flores’ underworld career began in the late 1980s when he became an alleged recruit of the communist hit group Alex Boncayao Brigade (ABB) in the Malabon area. The ABB was then directed by the late Alfredo “Joey” de Leon, its deputy commander operating in Metro Manila and Rizal.

“He immediately showed his adeptness (gilas) so Joey gave him special operations mission and he delivered,” Ka Jony said.

De Leon eventually founded his own unit, the Red Scorpion Group, or RSG, a feared band of criminals engaged in kidnapping and bank robberies in Metro Manila and nearby provinces.

Ka Jony said Flores did not join the RSG. Instead, he left the ABB and recruited members for his own team.

“Even then he showed how ambitious he was. Alvin would say that someday his name would be famous (sisikat).”

Dagupan car shop

Ka Jony said Flores’ gang was barely mentioned in the media but in the criminal world, the Alvin Flores Group began to be noticed, especially by police and military intelligence.

While he was with the ABB, Flores’ job was to snatch vehicles, he said. “If we had an operation and we needed cars, he handled it. We never ran out of vehicles. They were always different vehicles. We could not be traced.”

Flores even began to operate his own car repair shop in Dagupan, Pangasinan, and learned how to repaint stolen vehicles so they wouldn’t be recognized, Ka Jony said.

Last week, two suspected members of the Flores gang, who allegedly had been bodyguards of San Nicolas Mayor Leoncio Saldivar III, were arrested by the National Bureau of Investigation in Pangasinan. The mayor denied the suspects were his bodyguards and said he had a “clear conscience.”

Closing in

The National Capital Region police commander, Director Roberto Rosales, said investigators were looking into the Flores gang’s connections in Pangasinan.

Rosales said in a phone interview the probe was focused on Flores’ property.

“Discreetly, we are closing in on ‘assets’ who could help us determine the range of operation and connections of Flores, not just in Pangasinan, but in other areas as well,” he said.

Ka Jony said the gang’s operations were mostly in Metro Manila and nearby provinces. He said he was surprised to learn Flores was killed in Cebu because it was “out of the AFG’s comfort zone.”

“Of course, you would operate in an area where you have a protector or someone you could run to. That’s basic,” he said.

Ugly truth

It was after Flores had become a “legend” as a car thief that he was picked up by the police, Ka Jony said.

But instead of being thrown in jail, he was turned into an “asset” of the Philippine National Police’s Traffic Management Group (TMG).

“They can deny that but that is known among his fellow carnappers,” Ka Jony said.

From being a mere carnapper, Flores built his own gang, daring in his criminal pursuits because “he knew he was protected,” Ka Jony added.

Habagat asset

He said this was the ugly truth in the lives of some people in the underworld, criminals with backgrounds of ideologues ending up as government informants.

Ka Jony said he was speaking from experience as he, too, was once a communist cadre, then a criminal, then a government asset.

Ka Jony said he was a former ABB commander who joined De Leon when he formed the Red Scorpion. After De Leon was killed in 1993, he said he surrendered to the then Task Force Habagat, an elite unit headed by Sen. Panfilo Lacson, then a senior superintendent.

While in the custody of TF Habagat, Ka Jony claimed he was recruited as an asset and that his work helped neutralize the remnants of the RSG. When the RSG was finally crippled, his services were also terminated, he said.

Since then, he has lived a “normal life,” according to Ka Jony.

Unlucky ones

This reporter also interviewed Ka Jony way back in the 1990s while he was still hiding in Pampanga, months after De Leon was killed.

A couple of years ago, this reporter had a chance encounter with Ka Jony. By then, he was working as a driver/bodyguard of a prominent personality in politics, whose recommendation got Ka Jony his present job taking care of fighting cocks.

Referring to his days in the underworld, Ka Jony said: “I was lucky to have survived and to live a normal life after that episode in my life. Others were not as lucky—like Alvin.”