Duterte: Cops protecting gang head

Vice mayor Rodrigo Duterte

DAVAO CITY—The car theft suspect, who faces a bounty of up to P5 million for his capture, dead or alive, is now on the run and able to elude authorities because of police protection, according to the city official who offered the reward for the suspect’s head.

Vice Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, who dangled the bounty for the head of Ryan Yu, said in his weekly TV program here that Yu, alias Baktin, had fled to Thailand and would have returned to the Philippines on Nov. 6.

Duterte said Yu had canceled his return flight to the Philippines.

The vice mayor said Yu, the suspected head of a car theft gang operating in Mindanao and with links to another car theft syndicate operating in Luzon, has deep contacts in the police force, who helped Yu evade arrest by giving him tips about which places police would search for the suspect and when the search would be conducted.

According to Duterte, “we have confirmed that he (Yu) was in Thailand and was supposed to fly back on the sixth (of November).”

“We closely watched out for him but he did not arrive,” said Duterte, quoting sources that he would not identify. “He has canceled his flight,” the vice mayor said.

According to Duterte, the photograph of Yu that was captured on CCTV cameras in the airport in Thailand showed a distressed man.

“The picture of Baktin is no longer the same,” said Duterte.

“It is now the picture of a haggard man with large eye bags, which means he has not slept well. It’s a picture of a worried person,” said the vice mayor, who offered P1 million if Baktin is captured alive,

P4 million if he is captured dead and P5 million if Baktin’s severed head is presented “in an ice box.”

Yu allegedly heads the Baktin car theft syndicate that targets Toyota vehicles in Mindanao. On Oct. 17, authorities raided Yu’s warehouse in a village here after the arrest of four of his accomplices in Surigao del Sur.

Authorities seized 14 vehicles from Yu’s warehouse during the raid. Police said Yu’s group was behind the theft of at least 21 vehicles in Mindanao since November last year.

Duterte said the bounty for Yu’s capture has been raised to P6 million, after a car dealers’ group shelled out P1 million more.

The vice mayor said while it would be difficult to track down Yu if he had gone abroad, “one thing is sure: he cannot come back.” Germelina Lacorte, Inquirer Mindanao