All language subtitles for Asias Underworld s02e03 Kidnappers.eng

Brutal kidnapping syndicates.

Demanding multi-million dollar ransoms.

And paying them off
is no guarantee of release.

One in every three kidnaps
takes place in Asia.

Victims can be beaten, chain...

...and taken over a thousand kilometres
from their homes.

Some manage to make daring escapes.

But others are held captive for months,

wondering whether the world
has forgotten them.

Some don't even make it home alive.

January 2013, Philippines.

Businessman Jose Saribong
is dragged from his car...

...into a getaway vehicle.

His driver is killed.

Kidnappers demand a ransom
of over 20,000 dollars.

Two days after the ransom is paid,
Saribong is found.

Dead.

It's so unfortunate
that when they paid the money,

they were expecting
that the victim will be safely released.

And he was not released.

90 percent of kidnap victims survive
their ordeal.

Jose Saribong was one
of the unfortunate few.

The victim is really prone to be killed...

...because the abductor,
Stanley Banghulot,

is a friend of the victim.

He's a business partner of the victim.

He's already indebted to so many people
and he is into gambling.

That's why he needed a lot of money,

maybe to pay his debts with other people.

So he resorts to kidnap
his own business partner.

And then after getting the ransom money,

because the victim already knew
that he was the one, the mastermind,

he was forced to kill the victim.

Jose Saribong is just one of hundreds
of kidnap victims in the Philippines,

one of the most dangerous countries
in the world for kidnapping.

Those who do the dirty work
are often hired hit men,

working for larger criminal syndicates.

These people are not nice people.

They are criminals.

They took your liberty.

They get your liberty against your will.

And they inflicted so much pain
and so much discomfort in you.

For some kidnappers,
it's just a job that pays the bills.

Natoh had no education,
no employment and no money.

Then, in 2002, he found a job,

with a kidnapping syndicate.

As the ransoms got bigger and bigger,

it became harder for Natoh to get out.

Every kidnapping nets Natoh...

...nearly10 times the average monthly wage
in the Philippines.

Wealthy business people
are popular kidnap targets,

often paying their ransoms quickly
and quietly.

This was the hope
of a kidnapping syndicate...

...that abducted Sally Chua,

a wealthy 51-year-old businesswoman.

Four men turned up
at her office in Metro Manila...

...on the pretext
of discussing a business deal.

Once inside, they subdued five people,

including a security guard,

then seized and blindfolded Sally Chua.

Colonel Rolando Miranda and his team
were put on the case.

Every now and then, the kidnappers
were calling the family.

They initially ask for roughly
more than 2.5 million US dollars.

The ransom calls were made
using the victim's mobile phone,

giving the police valuable information.

You know...

...the cellphone that they used,
the cellphone of the victim,

can track the location.

"Find My iPhone",
like, something like that.

Every iPhone has the IMEI,

that's very, very unique in that phone...

...that you can track where exactly it is.

Over 6 six days,

police tracked Sally Chua's phone
as the kidnappers fled Metro Manila,

travelling more than
a thousand kilometers south by car.

Meanwhile, Sally Chua had her own plan.

By persuading the kidnappers
to let her withdraw the ransom money...

...from a bank in Davao City,

she had just lured the kidnappers
to one of the safest cities in the world,

run by a mayor nicknamed "The Punisher".

With the support
of the city's authorities,

including a shoot to kill order
from the mayor himself,

police made their move.

"Rescue her with all cost."

That is the instructions I gave them.

So when they saw the victim going
into the bank...

...escorted by one of the kidnapper,

the operatives of this group stormed.

They rescued the victim...

...and arrest the suspect escorting her.

And the other three guys on the van...

...that they used to transport the victim
from Manila to Davao.

They fought back our operatives
and eventually they were all killed.

We were able to neutralize three of them,

arrest the mastermind,

the one escorting the victim
inside the bank,

and confiscated a number
of firearms they used.

While Sally Chua was rescued,

many more cases go unreported or unsolved.

It is said that millions of dollars
are paid in ransom every year.

So where does the money go?

In one class of kidnapping,

it goes
towards funding terrorist activities.

Kidnappings have plagued the south
of the Philippines for decades,

and are most rampant
in Western Mindanao.

More often than not perpetrated
by terrorist organizations.

Abu Sayyaf,

an extremist group founded in the 1990s
with seed money from Al-Qaeda,

has been blamed
for the worst terror attacks...

...in Philippine history.

In its fight
for an independent Islamic state,

kidnapping has become an important part
of Abu Sayyaf operations.

They're after the money
and they are after a way to co-opt...

...both local officials
and the community around them.

That money filters
to the rest of the community...

...and that's part of the reason
the problem is so hard to solve.

Abu Sayyaf currently holds hostages
from several countries captive,

some for over a year.

For every foreigner that's kidnapped
that you hear about,

there are probably 20 Filipinos
you don't hear about.

This is the way they make money.

You know if you are no industry
and you have no job,

how do you make money?

Kidnapping for ransom
has become a cottage industry.

In 2013,

Nadjoua Bansil
and her younger sister Linda...

...were abducted
while visiting the Southern Philippines.

About 10 men stopped the jeepney
they were travelling in,

seized the sisters at gunpoint...

...and took them to their hideout.

The Bansil Sisters are filmmakers
who went to the Southern Philippines...

...to actually show
what life is like there.

They wanted to move away
from the idea of a Muslim as a terrorist,

they wanted to change the image of Muslims
and the irony of it is,

of course they are now,
they have been kidnapped.

Born to an Algerian mother,

the foreign-looking Bansil sisters
were immediately targeted by kidnappers,

who wanted a ransom
of over a million dollars.

Their brother, Muhammad Bansil,

briefly spoke to one of the sisters
via her mobile phone...

...just after the kidnapping.

She was saying
to contact the Algerian embassy.

And I was telling her to calm down,

but she was like repeating 50 million
and Algerian embassy.

That's all she was saying.

My father is Filipino.

It's only my mom whose Algerian, you know.

And we lived here in Philippines
since 1982.

Muhammad has spoken directly
with the kidnappers.

I really don't have any idea
what to tell them,

because, you know,
this is not an everyday thing for me,

like, you know, negotiating with people,
like, you know, who take your loved ones.

I told them, you know,
I said "Asalamualaikum", you know.

And he replied "Walaikumsallam", you know.

With very, very good manner, and...

He said like...

"If you guys are, you know,
you should help the Mujahidin..."

"...and you should contribute."

They have to resort to kidnapping
to sustain their operation,

to sustain their ideology before.

But it has become a business,

it has become their livelihood.

That's why they cannot live
without these people,

without kidnapping people for ransom.

With no hope
of raising the enormous ransom,

the family posted a desperate plea
on YouTube.

They hoped that the publicity
would pressure the kidnappers...

...into releasing the two girls.

Then, eight months after the kidnapping,

the Abu Sayaff group freed
the Bansil sisters.

Military presence in the area
may have made the sisters a liability...

...rather than a source of profit.

As authorities become more skilled
in handling kidnappings,

kidnappers have become more sophisticated
as well.

In 2011,

Australian Warren Rodwell was ambushed
in his Mindanao home...

...by armed Abu Sayyaf terrorists.

His plea for ransom was streamed online
by the kidnappers to a global audience.

My name is Warren Richard Rodwell
from Australia.

I've been held prisoner for over one year,
actually 15...

This is very clearly the first time...

...that kidnappers
were using social media...

to, to ask for money,
to show proof of life,

you know, they post a video,
pictures and video of him,

they negotiated on YouTube.

You know, it was fascinatingly horrendous
to see this,

because it was, it looked like
they were crowd sourcing ransom.

The constant threat of execution
left the ex-soldier near breaking point.

On a good day, he was fed boiled rice,

but at times he went up to six weeks
without decent food.

The ransom demanded was 2 million dollars.

After 15 months,
the ransom was bargained down.

Warren Rodwell's captors
accepted 100,000 dollars...

...and set him free.

Paying a ransom is often seen
as the easiest way out of a kidnapping.

But there is at least one class
of kidnapping...

...where money will not secure release.

And most frightening of all,

it is carried out
by the authorities themselves.

The Philippines is one of the world's
most dangerous countries...

...when it comes to kidnapping.

Most kidnappers want money.

But human rights activists suggest...

...that there is another disturbing form
of kidnapping,

forced disappearances
by agents of the state.

These were commonly carried out...

...by dictator Ferdinand Marcos'
security forces...

...after he placed the Philippines
under martial law in 1972.

The political kidnappings continued...

...alongside detentions,
beatings, harassment

and killings of the regime's opponents...

...until Marcos was toppled in 1986.

In 1972,

President Marcos had declared martial law,

and me being an activist,

I had to go underground to evade arrest...

...because many of us
were in the blacklist.

Playwright, poet
and human rights activist,

Bonifacio Ilagan was a writer...

...for an underground communist newspaper
in 1972.

He and hundreds like him
were taken captive and tortured.

The police raided his house
at dawn in April 1974.

He was beaten until he vomited blood...

...and the soles of his feet were burned.

We were handcuffed.

We were blindfolded
and taken to Camp Crame.

In Camp Crame,

the torture continued...

...and it was very methodical
and systematic.

He was released after two years,

only to find his family targeted as well.

When I was released,
it was my sister's turn...

...to be abducted.

It was less than a year
after my release...

...when I found out
that my sister went missing.

My sister's name is Rizalina.

She was 23 years old at that time,

and just like me,
she was a student activist.

And it is on record
that my sister's abduction...

...together with nine others
constitutes the single, biggest case...

...of political abduction...

...in the entire history
of the Philippines.

The Marcos era is over.

But could the kidnappings have continued?

Jonas Burgos was a political activist...

...rumored to have been
a communist guerilla.

In 2007,

he was snatched from a shopping mall
in Metro Manila...

...while he was having lunch.

His family suspected
that his disappearance...

...was more than a common kidnapping.

Around that time,
a lot of activists in Bulacan...

...were either abducted, killed
or arrested.

So my brother was also activist
in that area.

So immediately I have this feeling
that he was arrested or abducted.

My son at the time of abduction
was unarmed,

he was alone,
he was having lunch in the city.

So these are the kind of people...

...who are being abducted,
vulnerable ones.

Right now, we don't know
if he's alive or if he's dead.

According to a witness,

Jonas Burgos was driven away
in a vehicle...

...later found to be under the custody...

...of the 56th Infantry Battalion
of the Philippine Army.

The clue seemed to suggest...

...that the kidnappers could be linked
to the military.

The Burgos family's military contacts
unearthed more clues,

including a document known
as the "Order of Battle".

Order of Battle is the list of people...

...who needs to be arrested.

The document shows
that my brother's name is there...

...and together
with the remark "neutralize".

We were able to get a document,
another document.

We just got it this year
showing the picture of Jonas.

We were told that this picture of Jonas
was taken...

...after, right after he was abducted.

There's also a report,

they call it "After Apprehension Report",

and the list of names
who abducted my brother.

In March 2013,

the Court of Appeal held
the military accountable

...for Jonas Burgos's disappearance.

It also ruled that Philippine Army officer
Major Harry A. Baliaga Jr,

was responsible for Burgos' disappearance.

Charges against other military officials
were dropped.

Killings left and right,
abductions left and right,

nobody was punished.

Not a single case of abduction was solved.

Even up till now, not a single case.

No one has been sent to jail...

...even if you are able to prove
that they are responsible.

Up till now, impunity exists.

If law and order is weak,

even the people in charge
of maintaining law and order...

...can work with impunity...

...and that's what the case
of Jonas Burgos shows you.

President Benigno Aquino has ordered...

...the country's National Bureau
of Investigation...

...to further investigate
the Jonas Burgos case.

He has also signed a law
imposing up to life imprisonment...

...for state agents involved
in forced disappearances.

Activists believe that these will have
a positive impact on the situation.

Edita Burgos still hasn't given up
on the search for her son.

I want to find him alive.

I think a mother's heart always hopes...

...that she can embrace,
she can hug her son eventually.

Kidnapping continues
to happen in the Philippines.

Desperate families pay ransoms
to see their loved ones returned,

sometimes
without even calling the authorities.

Yet, the number of reported kidnappings
has been falling.

In the battle
between kidnappers and law enforcers,

it seems that police may be gaining
the upper hand.

We will give them the full force
of the law.

We will weaken them.

As much as possible,

we want to rid out these people
out of the community,

so that the community
or the people we are serving...

...will feel safe.

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