ATIMONAN, Philippines: At least three police personnel were among 13 suspected criminals who were gunned down in a shootout with Philippine security forces at a highway checkpoint, officials said yesterday.
Gunmen riding in three black SUVs opened fire on more than 50 army and police troopers who flagged down the vehicles late Sunday in the coastal town of Atimonan in Quezon province, about 140 km southeast of Manila. Eleven suspects died on the spot, including a police colonel who was a regional commander and two other officers, said police spokesman Erwin Obal. Authorities were checking the identities of two other victims on suspicion they were either former or current members of the intelligence service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, Obal said.
Two gunmen jumped out of one of the cars and fired from a roadside canal, said Lt. Col. Monico Abang, who led an army platoon in the clash. The rest stayed in two vehicles, which troops raked with gunfire on a sparsely populated stretch of the highway.
More gunmen fired from a third vehicle, which turned around and fled, Abang said. Authorities didn’t say how many suspects were believed to have escaped.
Security personnel sometimes collude with criminal syndicates to rob banks or traffic narcotics in an underworld that often includes corrupt politicians. Abang said an initial investigation showed that the gunmen were likely members of a gun-for-hire group operating in provinces south of Manila.
“They rolled down their windows and started firing, so we had to retaliate,” Abang said by cellphone from the scene of the clash. “They were clearly outnumbered and outgunned.”
On the side of the security forces, a police colonel was shot in the hand and foot and taken to a hospital.
Abang said the army and police had set up the checkpoint after an informant told police that gunmen involved in illegal drugs, gambling and kidnapping for ransom would pass through Atimonan in mountainous Quezon, where communist guerrillas have a presence.
The latest violence followed two other deadly shootings that have revived calls for tighter gun control in the Philippines, where there are more than half a million unlicensed firearms, according to police estimates.
Earlier Sunday, before the shootout, presidential spokeswoman Abigail Valte told reporters that President Benigno Aquino III, a known gun enthusiast, would study gun-control proposals with other officials. Among the proposals is a call by anti-gun groups to ban the carrying of firearms by civilians outside their homes.
Police among 13 suspects slain in Philippine clash
Police among 13 suspects slain in Philippine clash
Louvre official says fraud ‘inevitable’ at large museums
- Among the suspects are two Chinese tour guides accused of bringing groups of tourists into the museum
PARIS: For the Louvre, the world’s most visited museum, it is “statistically inevitable” that fraud would come up at some point, the museum’s No. 2 said in the wake of a decade-long, $11.8 million suspected ticket-fraud scheme revealed last week.
Kim Pham, the Louvre’s general administrator, told The Associated Press that the museum’s unique scale makes it particularly vulnerable. However, pressed to name other institutions with similar problems, he declined to single out peers.
“Which museum in the world, with this level of attendance, would not at certain moments have some issues of fraud,” wondered Pham, who oversees day-to-day operations, including administration and internal management.
And that’s no easy task, with 86,000 square meters of space presenting 35,000 works of art to nine million visitors a year.
Last week, Paris prosecutors said that nine people were being detained in connection to the ticket scheme. The nine have been formally charged and brought before investigating judges.
Among the suspects are two Chinese tour guides accused of bringing groups of tourists into the museum by fraudulently reusing the same tickets multiple times for different visitors, allegedly with the help of Louvre employees.
The Louvre had filed a complaint back in December 2024, prosecutors said. Investigators estimate losses of more than $11.8 million over a decade, with the alleged criminal network suspected of bringing in up to 20 guided groups a day.
