Kidnapped Greek exec found dead

A 62-year-old Greek shipping executive was found dead by agents of the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force (PAOCTF) in Rizal yesterday, more than a month after he was kidnapped in Manila.

The victim was identified as Felippo Orfanos, whose body was found dumped in a canal along a road in Barangay Maybakal in Morong, Rizal.

Sources from the task force’s Luzon team said they have arrested one of the alleged kidnappers, Abdul Macaumbang, who was hiding in a safehouse in Maharlika Village, Taguig.

PAOCTF chief Director Hermogenes Ebdane ordered Task Force Luzon leader Superintendent Alan Purisima to go after the suspect’s accomplices.

Ebdane has coordinated with the Greek embassy in Manila to get in touch with the victim’s family and relatives.

Orfanos was the first kidnapping-for-ransom victim killed since Ebdane assumed office earlier this month. He was also the first foreigner to have been kidnapped this year.

Agents said Orfanos’ body was brought to a funeral parlor in Teresa town in Rizal, where an autopsy would be conducted. The body was found by a barangay resident who initially thought the victim was merely asleep near the grassy area of the road.

Judging from the stage of decomposition, Orfanos had been dead for more than three days, PAOCTF agents said. The body bore several bullet wounds.

Police sources said they believe the shipping executive was shot after his family failed to raise the P5-million ransom demanded by his abductors. They said the ransom was brought down to P500,000 during negotiations.

Initial investigation revealed Orfanos was abducted by an undetermined number of men while the Greek national was on his way to the OBSM Shipping Lines office in Manila at around 6:30 a.m. last Jan. 15.

Witnesses claimed one of the suspects shoved the victim inside a waiting Tamaraw FX van with license plates PPY-126 at United Nations Avenue and Bocobo street in Ermita.