Philippine President Duterte Says Chinese Casino Loan Sharks and Kidnappers Will Be Caught ‘Dead or Alive’

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte told a roomful of Chinese investors this week that casino moneylenders who gamblers who cannot pay up will be “caught dead or alive”   and preferably dead.

Rodrigo Duterte delivered some stark warnings to Chinese investors at a company launch Thursday, telling them he is gunning for kidnappers and other Chinese criminals. (Image: AP)

His words reported by the South China Morning Post and delivered at the launch of a Hong Kong-backed property company in Manila suggest that the strong-arm leader is ready to mete out the kind of justice on loan sharks normally reserved for the country’s drug dealers and addicts.

In August 2017, human rights groups claimed that more than 13,000 people had become victims of Duterte-backed extrajudicial killings, which have targeted dealers and drug users since the president’s accession to power in June 2016.

Explosion in Kidnappings

The Philippine casino sector is booming, thanks largely to improved diplomatic relations with China and Duterte’s easing of visa restrictions for Chinese visitors. But the upturn has brought with it junkets, loan sharks, and an explosion in kidnappings.

Chinese tourists are vulnerable to moneylenders because of the strict restrictions on the movement of cash from mainland China. And if they can’t repay the money borrowed, they can be abducted and tortured to extort relatives to wire money. Occasionally, they re killed.

The anti-crime watchdog, Movement for Restoration of Peace and Order (MRPO), said in March there had been 23 kidnapping victims since the beginning of 2018 — an average of two per month.

“There are foreigners who come here to play their trade, lending money, and if the debtor cannot pay, they kidnap and sometimes they ask for a ransom,” said Duterte. “And even with the delivery of the money they just go ahead and kill the victim.

We’re good friends with everybody, but I will not hesitate even to tell your ambassador that I killed your idiot citizen because he was f