Ex-cop convicted as brains in Jee Ick-joo slay arrested
Dismissed Police Lt. Col. Rafael Dumlao, whose local court acquittal in the case of slain South Korean businessman Jee Ick-joo was reversed by the Court of Appeals, his guilt later affirmed by the Supreme Court, was arrested before dawn Tuesday in Quezon City, officials said.
In hiding since the Supreme Court affirmed his conviction last year, Dumlao was arrested around 5 a.m. in a house at Barangay Pasong Tamo after a three-week surveillance operation set off by a tip coming from an informant, according to Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla.
The case of Jee, 53, was one of the most controversial cases linked to ex-President Rodrigo Duterte’s deadly drug war.
According to case records, Jee was abducted by antinarcotics police on Oct. 18, 2016, under the guise of a drug raid and strangled inside Camp Crame, headquarters of the Philippine National Police. His remains were cremated at a Caloocan City funeral parlor and the ashes flushed down a toilet.
Announcing the arrest at a briefing on Tuesday, Remulla said Dumlao was still asleep when a team from the PNP’s Criminal Investigation and Detection Group – National Capital Region (CIDG-NCR) barged into the house.
He was also caught keeping a 9mm pistol registered in another person’s name. His laptop and mobile phone were also confiscated for forensic examination.
“It looks like he’s been there for a while. We do not know who owns the house, but we have an informant who saw him there,” Remulla said.
“We surveilled him for around three weeks. It was the wedding of his daughter last Sunday. We tracked his movement if it really was him. It seemed that he watched the wedding on Facebook Live; he did not attend personally. But there was movement in the house. We confirmed it was him,” he said.
Tokhang ‘abuses’
Remulla described the Jee case as “a result of the abuses under (Oplan) Tokhang (which) gave too much license to PNP operatives to do things at their whim without the process of law.”
Oplan Tokhang was the antidrug operation launched nationwide by the PNP, then under police general and now Sen. Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, shortly after Duterte assumed the presidency.
On paper, Tokhang was a campaign to convince known or suspected drug users in the community to come forward and be admitted to the government’s rehabilitation program. But it soon became a catch-all phrase for questionable police operations that ended up killing thousands, with official reports later claiming that the target persons resisted arrest or “fired back” (“nanlaban”).
Dumlao’s arrest was carried out “according to law,” Remulla said. “We did not violate any procedure. We read him his rights. We did not hurt him.”
In May 2025, the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission offered a P1-million reward for Dumlao’s arrest.
South Korean Ambassador Lee Sang-hwa, South Korean President Lee Jae-myung and Jee’s widow Choi Kyung-jin have been informed of Dumlao’s arrest, Remulla said.
Cleared by local court
In June 2023, Judge Eda Dizon of the Angeles City Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 60 acquitted Dumlao, the alleged mastermind, of kidnapping and homicide while convicting two other defendants—Chief Master Sgt. Ricky Sta. Isabel and National Bureau of Investigation errand boy Jerry Omlang.
The Court of Appeals (CA) annulled Dumlao’s acquittal in July 2024, saying the lower court had committed a “grave abuse of discretion.”
According to the CA, the RTC proceedings were “a sham and an apparent mockery of the judicial process such that Dumlao’s acquittal was a foregone conclusion and in total disregard of the evidence.”
The CA sentenced Dumlao to reclusion perpetua (20 to 40 years) without parole and ordered him to pay Jee’s family P350,000 in damages for kidnapping with homicide.
For kidnapping and serious illegal detention, he received another prison term of reclusion perpetua and ordered to pay Jee’s heirs P225,000 in damages.
For the carjacking case, he was sentenced to 30 to 35 years in prison.
P5-M ransom demand
One of the coaccused, Executive Master Sgt. Roy Villegas, became a state witness in the case.
According to Remulla, Dumlao went into hiding after the Supreme Court affirmed the appellate court’s decision in June 2025.
An Inquirer exclusive report on Jan. 8, 2017, described Jee as a victim of a “Tokhang for ransom” racket by law enforcers taking advantage of the antidrug campaign.
At the time of the kidnapping, Dumlao was a ranking official of the now-defunct Anti-Illegal Drugs Group of the PNP.
About two weeks after the abduction and with Jee already dead, his kidnappers still demanded a P5-million ransom from his wife. —WITH REPORTS FROM AFP AND INQUIRER RESEARCH
