While Macau’s gaming-related illegal detentions are on the decline, Philippine police are having trouble reining in local kidnappers.

This week, Teresita Ang See of the Movement for Restoration of Peace and Order (MRPO), a local anti-crime watchdog group, told the Philippine Star that casino-related kidnappings – in which loan sharks detain unlucky gamblers until their friends or relatives can make good on their debts – were “getting to be a lucrative business.”

Ang See’s comments followed reports of a male Chinese national who managed to escape his kidnappers, to whom he owned a sizable gambling debt from play at a casino in Pampanga. The victim claimed that other Chinese nationals were being held for similar debts.

Glenn Dumlao, chief senior superintendent of the police Anti-Kidnapping Group, told the Star that two of the nine Chinese kidnappers had been arrested. The Chinese embassy reportedly released a photo of a “badly beaten victim” to remind Chinese nationals of the perils of getting involved in gambling while traveling abroad.