Chinese, Malaysian tourists kidnapped for US$43,100 ransom by Philippines police, 4 officers arrested

“I was shocked that policemen were the ones involved,” Abalos said in a news conference, where the four police were presented in handcuffs and orange detainee shirts. “This incident is a serious breach of public trust and core values of the police force.”

Police said they’re looking for at least 10 other suspects who were not police but implicated in the kidnapping.

Police said they filed criminal complaints for kidnapping, carjacking and robbery against the suspects.

Former President Rodrigo Duterte had described many members of the national police, numbering more than 230,000 nationwide, as “rotten to the core,” although he ordered them to enforce his anti-drugs crackdown that led to the killings of thousands of mostly poor suspects.

The International Criminal Court has been investigating the large-scale killings as a possible crime against humanity. Duterte and the national police chiefs who served under him had denied authorising extrajudicial killings, although the former president had publicly threatened drug suspects with death during his presidency, which ended in 2022.