A breakthrough has recently been made in a nearly three-year-long kidnapping and disappearance case in Laguna Province, Philippines. One of the defendants, known by the alias "Alyas Totoy," revealed in an exclusive media interview that in August 2021, Ricardo Lasco Jr., a 44-year-old online cockfighting technician, was suspected of illegally broadcasting cockfighting events and was violently abducted and likely murdered.
Totoy stated that he was hired by an unnamed organization to assist in the kidnapping, for which he was paid 2 million pesos. He disclosed that on the day of the incident, several armed individuals broke into Lasco's residence in San Pedro City and forcibly took him away. Since then, there has been no word from Lasco. Totoy indicated that the mastermind intended to gain benefits through kidnapping due to Lasco's unauthorized broadcasting of cockfighting events.
Although Totoy did not specify the identity of the mastermind, he revealed that he possesses video footage of Lasco being detained and hinted that the victim might have already been killed, with his body possibly discarded in Taal Lake, strangled with steel wire.
Totoy has proactively contacted Lasco's sister, Charline Lasco, to apologize and express his willingness to assist in the investigation. The police had previously charged three officers involved in the case and confirmed some of the identities involved, but the overall progress of the investigation has been slow.
The Lasco family has called on President Marcos and the Philippine National Police Chief Nicholas Torre to order a reopening of the investigation to uncover the full truth. Since 2021, more than 30 e-sabong practitioners have mysteriously disappeared in the Philippines, involving issues of illegal broadcasting and gambling fraud, with no complete truth yet revealed.
