EDITORIAL - Crime network

Carjacking has become a flourishing industry, according to a police report, and those involved readily kill. The latest victim is the owner of a Toyota Innova who was apparently taken along with his vehicle late last Saturday in Baguio City. The vehicle was recovered first before Roldan Ymson, 67, was found dead in Pozzorubio, Pangasinan yesterday morning. He was hogtied and gagged, and he had been shot in the chest.

Ymson’s vehicle was found because police in Tarlac were alerted about the presence of armed men who drove to a farm in Gerona in the Innova. Police said when they tried to approach the farm, the armed men opened fire. Five of the suspected carjackers, including a woman, were killed in a 30-minute firefight.

Ymson was just the latest in a string of individuals brutally killed by carjackers. Among the fatalities in recent years was the son of lawyer Oliver Lozano. And those five carjackers in Tarlac were just the latest in a long string of suspects killed in armed encounters with the police.

While there are Filipinos who prefer that type of swift justice to the agonizingly slow process of sending criminals to prison in this country, dead suspects cannot provide a bigger picture of their operations to law enforcers. That picture should include everyone involved in the operation, from the financier to the actual carjackers, to the owners of garages where stolen vehicles undergo certain alterations in preparation for new vehicle registration papers.

That picture should also include those involved in issuing bogus vehicle registration papers, and finally the buyers. Carjackers operate to meet a demand, and certain buyers are fully aware that the vehicles offered to them are stolen. According to a police document, some buyers even place orders with carjacking rings for the vehicles they want.

As in drug trafficking, there’s big money to be made in carjacking. And where there’s big money involved, the perpetrators tend to be the most brazen in resorting to violence. In going after carjackers, law enforcers must not stop at neutralizing those who actually steal vehicles. This crime involves an elaborate network. At every step of the carjacking operation, those involved must be caught and brought to justice.