Manhunt on vs members of 61 criminal gangs in Metro Manila

MANILA, Philippines — The Criminal Investigation and Detection Group is leading the hunt for members of at least 61 criminal syndicates in Metro Manila.

CIDG Director Benjamin Magalong said on Monday the groups have been moving around the National Capital Region and nearby provinces, in a bid to avoid detection and arrest.

“These groups are involved mostly in robbery, gun-for-hire, illegal drugs, and gun trafficking,” the police official said in a recent interview.

He declined to name the 61 criminal groups that the CIDG has been pursuing so as not to jeopardize the ongoing operations.

The CIDG-led campaign against the syndicates in Metro Manila also involves other units of the Philippine National Police.

“It’s not only the CIDG that is going after these groups, but other PNP units as well under the ‘whole of PNP approach’ or the Oplan Lambat Sibat,” Magalong said, referring to the PNP’s anti-criminality operations in Metro Manila.

Lambat was designed to function as a net for criminals, through increased checkpoints, mobile and beat patrols, and intensified serving of arrest warrants. Sibat, on the other hand, is the unified intelligence target operations of the PNP, using combined intelligence resources of several operating units.

Since June, the weekly average crime rate has gone down from the range of 900-1,000 to around 500 in recent weeks.

In recent months, the CIDG arrested several leaders and members of criminal gangs mostly operating in Metro Manila.

On November 20, Israel Nicolas, a leader of a gang dealing in illegal drugs and gun-for-hire activities, was apprehended as he was causing a commotion in a neighborhood in Barangay Maypajo, Caloocan City.

Earlier on Nov. 7, Arnolfo Tolin was arrested in Malolos City, Bulacan, by virtue of an arrest warrant for illegal possession of explosives and attempted robbery with homicide. Two of his cohorts were apprehended in separate operations.

Tolin was the alleged leader of a robbery gang responsible for 18 robberies and car thefts in Metro Manila and nearby provinces in Central Luzon, Calabarzon and the Bicol regions.

He was one of the CIDG’s top five priority targets under Special Task Group Pivot, a unit created specifically to go after notorious criminal syndicates.

On September 7, the CIDG arrested David Gonzales, the leader of the “Batang Kidlat” group which has been carrying out burglaries in the provinces of Cavite and Laguna, and the nearby cities of Muntinlupa, Las Piñas and Parañaque. A cohort was arrested with him.

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