Murder suspect nabbed in date set up by Facebook ‘lady pal’

One of Marikina City’s most wanted suspects was arrested on early Sunday morning after being lured into a “date’’ arranged by the police via Facebook.

Adrian Arellano fell for the honeytrap set up by an undercover officer who pretended to be a woman online, befriended him on social media and later professed having “a huge crush on him,” according to Senior Supt. Roger Quesada, the Marikina police chief.

The 30-year-old Arellano was the subject of an arrest warrant issued by Judge Acerey Pacheco of Marikina Regional Trial Court Branch 165 in connection with the murder of Jerome Licuanan, 35, in January 2017.

Police believed that the suspect, who was also on their watch list of suspected drug peddlers, stabbed Licuanan dead over a drug deal gone wrong.

Investigators recently received a tip that Arellano returned to Barangay Malanday in October last year after hiding in the Bicol region. Intelligence officers first obtained his cell phone number but failed to locate him.

Learning that Arellano had a Facebook account, an undercover agent disguised himself as a single lady and started communicating with the suspect, a father of one who had been separated from his partner, Quesada said.

Their “meetup” was arranged on Sunday at Mindanao Avenue corner Road 20, Quezon City, where Arellano was arrested upon introducing himself to his online admirer, who turned out to be a policewoman playing a role in the entrapment.

Arellano, who was employed as a house painter in Malanday at the time of his arrest, remained in detention on Monday.