Atong Ang: Wanted Over 34 Missing Men. A Minister Claims $3B in Crypto

On Monday 19 October 2026 the Philippine Interior Secretary, Jonvic Remulla, was asked on the news channel ANC where Charlie "Atong" Ang was. Ang, a gaming tycoon, is wanted over the disappearance of at least 34 men from the country's cockfighting business and has evaded arrest since January. Remulla said he was somewhere in Southeast Asia, most likely Cambodia. "We are confident that he is in that area," he said. Then he added: "I think he has $3 billion in cash with him all over the world converted into cryptocurrency."

Two days later the Justice Secretary, Fredderick Vida, contradicted the first claim: "Per records of the department, he is still here." The Bureau of Immigration has no record of Ang leaving. For the second claim, no wallet, exchange account, transfer or court filing has been shown.

Ang faces 26 counts filed by the Department of Justice, 10 of kidnapping with homicide and 16 of kidnapping with serious illegal detention, under three arrest warrants that allow no bail. He has not been convicted and denies any part in the disappearances. The reward for information leading to his arrest is 20 million pesos, roughly $330,000.

The 34 men

The missing men were sabungeros, the Filipino word for people in the cockfighting world: handlers, bettors and betting agents. During the Covid lockdowns cockfights moved online: matches were streamed from arenas and people bet through apps. This was e-sabong, and Ang's company, Lucky 8 Star Quest, was one of the few licensed to run it by PAGCOR, the state gaming regulator. At a Senate hearing in March 2022 Ang said bets on its games could reach 2 billion pesos a day, and that the company kept roughly 800 million to 900 million pesos a month after agents and costs, about $15 million to $17 million at the time.

Between April 2021 and January 2022 at least 34 men linked to e-sabong vanished in Laguna, Batangas, Manila and Bulacan. One, an e-sabong agent named Ricardo Lasco, was taken from his home in San Pablo, Laguna, by armed men. None has been found. In May 2022 President Rodrigo Duterte shut e-sabong down, and the investigation stalled.

It restarted in June 2025. Julie "Dondon" Patidongan, a former security chief at arenas linked to Ang and one of six Manila Arena guards already charged over the disappearances, said on television that the men had been strangled and dumped in Taal Lake, which surrounds a volcano south of Manila. He said they were killed over suspected match-fixing by police officers working on the side for an online cockfighting operator, and put the toll closer to 100. Divers have since brought up nearly 2,000 bones. By June 2026 police forensic experts had identified about 1,400 as human but matched none to the families' DNA. The lake had badly degraded the remains, their director said. Patidongan's account has not been tested at trial.

The charges, and the denial

On 9 December 2025 Justice Department prosecutors found "prima facie evidence with reasonable certainty of conviction" against Ang and 21 others, many of them police officers. The case rests on the sworn confessions of Patidongan and his brother Ellakim. On 13 January 2026 Judge Mary Jean Cajandab-Ong of the regional trial court in Santa Cruz, Laguna, ordered the arrests. The next day police arrested ten officers and seven civilians, but not Ang. Courts in Lipa City, Batangas, and San Pablo, Laguna, issued warrants of their own.

Ang has denied the accusations since Patidongan first made them. In July 2025 he filed complaints against Patidongan, whom he described as his former farm manager and head of security at his cockpits, and another man, Alan Bantiles, accusing them of threatening to name him unless he paid 300 million pesos. "We are decent people," he told reporters in Filipino. "There are no criminals here." Prosecutors in Mandaluyong dismissed his complaint that September for lack of evidence. His lawyer, Gabriel Villareal, called the Justice Department's resolution "deeply flawed and grossly unfair" and the first warrant "premature", saying no physical evidence linked Ang to the disappearances.

Ang has run before. In 2001 he left the country as President Joseph Estrada fell, and was charged with plunder alongside him. The FBI arrested him in Las Vegas; he was sent back in 2006 and in 2007 pleaded guilty to a lesser offence, corruption of public officials.

One minister says Cambodia, another says he never left

In January Remulla said Ang might be in Cambodia and, if so, had left by the "backdoor": an unofficial exit such as a boat from a remote coast. On 6 February Cambodia's foreign ministry said there was "no record of Charlie Tiu Hay Ang's entry or exit at any Cambodian border checkpoints". Days later Vida, then acting Justice Secretary, said intelligence showed Ang was still in the country. In April Remulla said police had missed him by a day in Calabarzon, the region south of Manila. In May the Interior Department announced an Interpol Red Notice, a request to police worldwide to find and arrest him. In July the national police chief, General Jose Melencio Nartatez Jr., said Ang was most likely still in the Philippines.

On 20 October Remulla confirmed Ang had "used the backdoor" but would not say when, from where or how. The next day he said the intelligence had been checked for about a year before he disclosed it, much of it from Ang's former associates who had become state witnesses.

Vida said "I cannot confirm that he is already out of the country," because the Justice Department relies on immigration records, but conceded the borders are "very porous" and a backdoor exit would leave no record. Both men can be right: an immigration database only counts people who pass through official ports.

Malacañang, the presidential palace, called for an inquiry. "We have to investigate whether there were lapses," said its press officer, Claire Castro, adding that "this is not the first time that Atong Ang escaped." On 22 October the Philippine National Police opened its own probe. "Regardless of his current whereabouts the PNP remains committed to serving the warrant of arrest," said its spokesman, Colonel Allen Rae Co.

What $3 billion in crypto would and would not mean

"With that kind of money, you can pay people off," Remulla said on ANC. "We're not saying he's paying people off in Cambodia." In Tagalog he added: "Ayan ang mahirap, naimbento 'yung crypto, hard to trace kung nasaan siya" (that is the hard part: crypto exists, so it is hard to trace where he is). He did not say where the figure came from and cited no documents, wallet addresses or exchanges; no Philippine agency has announced freezing any crypto linked to Ang.

The appeal to a fugitive is plain. Bitcoin and similar coins are digital money controlled by a private key, a long secret code that works like an account number and PIN in one. Whoever holds the key can send the money anywhere in minutes, with no bank to approve or block the transfer. A key can be written on paper or memorised, so a fortune can cross a border without a suitcase of cash. A common choice is a stablecoin such as USDT, a digital dollar issued by the company Tether, because its value does not swing like bitcoin's.

What it does not mean is invisible money. Most blockchains are public ledgers: like a stock exchange's record of trades, they show every transfer but not the names behind it, and analytics firms such as Chainalysis follow money through them. The weak points are the way in and the way out. Turning billions in cash into crypto normally runs through exchanges, which work like brokers and must check customers' identity, or through over-the-counter desks, brokers for very large trades. And Tether can freeze USDT. In 2025, after the kidnapping and murder of the businessman Anson Que, Philippine police working with Chainalysis and Tether froze some of the ransom money, which had been moved in USDT.

For now the $3 billion is one minister's belief. What both ministers agree on matters more to the families: Ang has not been caught. When the first warrant was issued in January they called it "an important step toward the justice we have long been fighting for." Nine months later, they are still waiting for him to appear in court.