Cops hot on the trail of kidnap gang head

He used to be under the care of "police handlers" as he espied on communist rebels. Now the police, in their renewed campaign against kidnappings, are hot on his trail.

The target of the manhunt is Amado Bucala, alleged leader of a notorious kidnap-for-ransom syndicate which, police records show, raked in P121.6 million in ransom from mostly Chinese-Filipino victims before 1999, and P83 million more in early 1999.

He began his "criminal career" in 1987. While he guarded several banks in Quezon City, he also allegedly traded "inside info" with bank robbers, mostly with the notorious Red Scorpion gang.

That year, law enforcers nearly nailed him in an alleged robbery-holdup. The Quezon City police filed charges against him, but the prosecutor’s office subsequently dismissed the case.

The reason: key witnesses, mostly bank tellers, declined to testify because they feared for their lives, recalled Chief Inspector Rodolfo Jaraza, homicide chief of the Central Police District’s Criminal Investigation Division.

Bucala, Jaraza believes, is still alive despite persistent yet unconfirmed reports that he had been liquidated by his own henchmen.

Facelift?

Quoting sources from the underworld, Jaraza said Bucala might have undergone a facelift or even liposuction to hide his real identity, what with the vast wealth he has amassed from his alleged lawless activities.

"Malaking accomplishment kung patay na talaga si Bucala (It’s a big accomplishment if Bucala is indeed dead). But I doubt the reports," said Jaraza.

According to the veteran homicide and robbery investigator, he has no direct information on Bucala’s links with kidnapping gangs because he (Bucala) shifted operations to southern Metro Manila in the late-1990s after feeling the heat in Quezon City.

Other police sources said Bucala disappeared only to resurface later as a police deep penetration agent (DPA) within the ranks of the New People’s Army (NPA) in Southern Tagalog.

Bucala, the sources said, infiltrated the rebel band in Sariaya, Quezon, thanks to his alleged links with the Red Scorpion gang during his days as a bank "insider."

But Bucala’s "police handlers," the sources said, failed to control his illegal activities in the underground movement as he allegedly spearheaded high-profile bank robberies and holdups.

This, the Camp Crame sources said, prompted Bucala’s handlers to let go of him.

Going big-time

Bucala then broke away from the rebel band and went big-time. He enticed his trusted men within the NPA to join him, and they formed what police dubbed as the "Bucala kidnap-for-ransom group."

With his alleged illegal activities, Bucala was reportedly able to acquire vast tracts of land and other properties such as a cockpit in Pangasinan, his home-province, and a ranch in Batangas, the sources said.

His gang’s membership eventually grew, drawing in mostly dismissed policemen and soldiers. This explains their modus operandi: in full uniform, they made their victims initially get the impression that everything was a legitimate police or military operation.

The gang has been tagged in nearly all kidnappings in Metro Manila, particularly in Valenzuela City. Bucala was known to be a hard negotiator, said to demand at least P50 million in cash as ransom.

Sometime in mid-1999, Camp Crame sources said several of Bucala’s men were arrested by agents of the defunct Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force (PAOCTF). Bucala, reports claimed, was himself nabbed but this was not publicized.

Bucala hails from Bani, Pangasinan, also the hometown of Senior Superintendent Michael Aquino, then the operations chief of the PAOCTF. Aquino has fled abroad following the downfall of former President Joseph Estrada, his wedding godfather.

Pangasinan safehouse

Bucala and his gang, according to records showed to The STAR, relocated their safehouse from Southern Tagalog to Pangasinan after he decided to live in with a former beauty queen, with whom he later had a child.

While in Pangasinan, sources said Bucala passed himself off as a big-time contractor, getting known by several aliases such as engineer George Corpuz, Joven Hurville Corpuz, Jun Taba and Botyong.

"He was even able to put up a cockpit arena in his hometown and at the same time, operated and financed jueteng operations in several parts of the province," a ranking Camp Crame official said.

He also befriended local executives and ranking police and military officials, many of whom allegedly received jueteng payola from him, as vouchers found during a raid on his Pangasinan safehouse supposedly showed.