Con couple kidnap OFW's daughter in aunt's care

An overseas Filipina worker's three-year-old daughter was kidnapped by a couple who duped the girl's aunt and caretaker by claiming they were friends of the girl's mother.

The couple, whose identities were not released, visited the child's aunt at Mangga, Tuding, Itogon, Benguet, northern Luzon, at 5pm on June 12.

The aunt, Marieta Depocsa Caasi, 47, a school teacher at the education department's special education centre in Baguio City, the country's summer capital, said they asked for a room for the night. They also said they worked in a Gulf country and were the friends of Martina Caasi, the girl's mother, also based in Dubai.

After spending the night at her house, the kidnappers invited the teacher along with her niece to join them while they shopped at Baguio Centre Mall. Since the mall was closed when they reached there at 8am, the duo invited the aunt and her niece for breakfast at Jollibee, a fast food restaurant. Caasi agreed.

Trusting the couple, she left her niece with them. She went to the centre to tell her colleagues she would be late for the day. When she returned she could neither find her niece nor the con couple, prompting her to seek police assistance .

She is also seeking the assistance of the National Bureau of Investigation.