Philippine police have taken into custody two former police officers accused of murdering Israeli businessman Yitzhak Cohen and his fiancée Geneva Lopez.
Cohen and Lopez were last seen on June 21 before heading to Tarlac City to inspect a property they intended to purchase. The property had been offered to Cohen in exchange for an unpaid debt of $250,000 by an individual who had borrowed money from him years earlier.
Investigators believe the couple may have been lured into a trap, falling victim to a vicious scam that preys on wealthy foreign businesspeople, often leading to kidnapping, ransom demands, and in this tragic case, brutal murder.
After nearly two weeks of extensive searching, the couple’s bullet-ridden bodies were finally discovered in a remote quarry in Capas.
According to Philippine News Agency, the two former police officers were arrested after their driver turned himself in to authorities. Disturbingly, the driver told investigators how shocked he was to find the couple’s lifeless bodies in the back of the SUV. Fearing for his own life, he followed the officers’ orders and drove to the site where the bodies were ultimately dumped.
Little information has been released about the two suspects, except that they had been AWOL from their police duties for several months. The Philippines Department of the Interior is expected to provide additional findings related to the case in the coming week, which may shed more light on the suspects’ backgrounds and potential motives behind this heinous crime.
Meanwhile, the Israeli embassy is assisting in repatriating Cohen’s body back to Israel.
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