Source: Xinmin Evening News 2024-07-05 16:51 Shanghai
Recently, two Chinese were kidnapped and killed in the Philippines. One of them, Xia, a Chinese citizen, and one Sun, a Chinese-American, was invited by a distributor calling himself "Li Na" to go to the Philippines to discuss business, and was kidnapped upon arrival and found dead on June 24.
Today (July 5), according to insiders, the Philippine police have determined that "Li Na" and at least one other man are involved in the case through photo comparison. The police have locked down the identity of the person involved in the case, "Li Na", who is from Taiwan, China, and is not currently in the Philippines. The police are still arresting the people involved in the case, including "Li Na".
The person said that a similar pattern of crime had occurred before. "It is understood that the name 'Li Na' has been implicated in more than one kidnapping case." Insiders said.
The reporter previously learned from the family of the murdered Chinese-American Sun, who was 45 years old, worked in a multinational medical company, and later founded his own medical company.
Previously, according to the evidence presented by Sun's friend, Sun went to the Philippines at the invitation of the Philippine MEDEV medical equipment company. Chat logs show that the trip was invited by a woman named "Li Na".
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The invitation letter received by Sun is according to the Beijing News
The reporter contacted the Philippine MEDEV medical equipment company, and the company's staff said that the company did not have a staff member named "Li Na", and had not sent an invitation letter to any Chinese enterprises or individuals recently. This case has nothing to do with the company, and someone fraudulently used the name of the company's staff to make a fake company invitation letter.
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The company information sent by "Li Na" is according to the Beijing News
The last call of the victim
"You can drink water with 200,000 yuan first"
According to media reports, Sun's close friend Gao Cheng mentioned that at about 7 o'clock on June 23, Sun made a final voice call, saying that he could drink water after calling 200,000 yuan first. At about 15 o'clock that day, Sun sent a text, "Mom, can you call some first?" Gao Cheng said that this was the last contact between Sun and his family, but this sentence was not necessarily his own.
The kidnapper who spoke on the phone was a man with a suspected Fujian accent, and the kidnappers did not accept the plan of first calling hundreds of thousands of yuan to verify whether the person was still alive. The kidnappers told the family that an account had only 8 to 10 minutes of "life", and that if hundreds of thousands of yuan were called, the account would be invalidated. "The kidnappers have a strong sense of anti-reconnaissance, and after informing the account, they must immediately remit it within a few minutes to prevent being locked by the police."
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On June 23, a screenshot of Sun's last conversation with his family. Photo courtesy of the interviewee
The last time for the kidnappers to demand a ransom from Xia's family was 12 noon on June 24. On the morning of the same day, Xia's family remitted 3 million yuan worth of USDT (Tether, a virtual currency pegged to the fiat currency, the US dollar), to the account designated by the kidnappers in two installments. But the person entrusted to negotiate did not redeem Xia. Since then, Sun and Xia have not been heard from.
A person familiar with the matter said that the last thing the kidnappers said to Xia's family was that they would definitely release him after receiving the money.
"We never expected that in the end, we still tore up the ticket, and we still had a glimmer of hope." On the evening of June 24, Mr. Gao said, the bodies of Mr. Sun and Mr. Xia were found near a lake about 500 kilometers away from Manila. Autopsies revealed that the two victims had been subjected to horrific abuse during their lifetimes.
In the early morning of June 27, the families of Sun and Xia arrived in Manila to deal with the aftermath. Gao Cheng said that upon arrival, the Chinese Embassy in the Philippines, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Philippine National Police Anti-Kidnapping Group (AKG), and the U.S. Embassy in Manila had formed a joint investigation team to solve the case as soon as possible.
Will it affect tourism in Southeast Asia?
Will the occurrence of the "ticket ripping" incident affect the local peak season tourism in the Philippines? According to the analysis of relevant people, there is a lot of import and export trade between China and the Philippines, and many Chinese tourists to the Philippines are business guests.
After the "ticket ripping" incident, it is estimated that it will have a direct impact on the business travel market in the short term, and the number of business travelers will decrease. The pure tourist tourists themselves are not very large, so the impact is not too obvious in the short term.
In 2023, at least 92 kidnapping cases were reported in the country, about 30% of which involved Chinese citizens, including tourists and Chinese who live and work in the Philippines for a long time, according to media reports citing Philippine media. Among them, on October 30, 2023, six Chinese were kidnapped by kidnappers at their home in Manila, which has attracted widespread attention.
According to the official website of the Ministry of Commerce, citing the Philippine "Business World" on May 16, the Philippines' ranking in the global good governance index fell four places to the worst level in three years. In East and Southeast Asia, the Philippines ranks third from the bottom, ahead of only Mongolia and Cambodia.
Summer travel to Southeast Asia
How do you keep yourself safe?
Travel accidents, telecom fraud, dengue fever epidemics, etc. are the things that tourists need to pay attention to when traveling to Southeast Asia. How can I protect my personal safety when traveling to Southeast Asia?
【Personal Safety】
After the "ticket ripping" incident, the Chinese Embassy in the Philippines issued a reminder to remind Chinese citizens in the Philippines to effectively raise their awareness of security precautions. In case of emergency, please call the police and contact the embassy or consulate in the Philippines for help. And the relevant assistance telephone number was announced.
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From the official website of the Chinese Embassy in the Philippines
【Telecom Fraud】
Since 2023, there have been many cases of telecom network fraud involving overseas Chinese citizens, and fraud routines have been constantly renovated and emerging, seriously harming the legitimate rights and interests of overseas Chinese citizens. In the course of their work, the public security organs have found that fraudsters usually falsely claim to be staff members of Chinese embassies and consulates abroad, public security and law enforcement agencies, and commit fraud on the grounds that the victim's passport and other documents need to be reissued when they expire, that the ID card and credit card are fraudulently used, or that they are involved in major criminal cases. In particular, in some cases, fraudsters pretend to be police officers, lawyers, etc., and take advantage of the victim's nervous self-blame and desire to stop losses after being defrauded of money, so as to help them protect their rights and recover losses, and ask for "benefit fees", "hardship fees" or "deposits" and "security deposits", etc., to carry out "secondary fraud" on the victims, causing a bad impact.
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From the "Overseas Telecom Network Fraud Prevention Brochure"
In June this year, the National Anti-Fraud Center, together with the Consular Protection Center of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Service Center for Overseas Study of the Ministry of Education, produced and launched the "Overseas Publicity Manual on Preventing Telecommunication Network Fraud", which carried out targeted anti-fraud publicity through a combination of online and offline distribution, further woven a dense anti-fraud publicity and protection network, and helped overseas Chinese citizens effectively safeguard their property security and legitimate rights and interests.
【Dengue fever】
The annual season for dengue transmission is from May to November, with the peak of the epidemic from July to September. Specifically, dengue fever is an acute insect-borne infection caused by dengue virus, mainly transmitted by the bite of Aedes mosquitoes, and the epidemic area is mainly distributed in tropical and subtropical regions, with Southeast Asia, the Western Pacific and the Americas being the most serious. It should be noted that there is currently no specific antiviral drug for the treatment of dengue fever, and timely medical treatment, early diagnosis, and early symptomatic treatment can reduce the risk of exacerbation of the disease. In addition, mosquito control is the most important measure to prevent dengue infection.
Xinmin Evening News (xmwb1929) integrates Red Star News, Beijing News, Financial Magazine, official website of the Chinese Embassy in the Philippines, Xinhua News Agency, China Business News, The Paper, etc
Editor: Gong Zijun
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