The Daughter of a British Aristocrat Has Been Killed by Philippine Drug-War Vigilantes

The daughter of runaway British aristocrat, Baron Tony Moynihan, the 3rd Lord Moynihan, has been shot dead in the Philippines amid the country’s increasingly bloody war on drugs.

According to the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Aurora Moynihan was found dead in a Manila street on Sept. 9. Police say she was shot in a vehicle and then pushed out of the vehicle door.

Moynihan, whose sister Maritoni Fernandez is a Philippine movie star, was found with a cardboard sign reading “Drug Pusher to the Celebrities You Are Next.” Her death came just hours after a local police chief announced the arrest of three suspects accused of supplying ecstasy to celebrity clientele.

Baron Moynihan, who died in Manila in 1991, gained notoriety during the 1970s as an alleged associate of an Australian criminal gang that smuggled heroin from Manila to Australia, and, in the 1980s, for betraying notorious international pot smuggler Howard Marks, a.k.a. “Mr. Nice,” to the U.S. Drugs Enforcement Agency in a celebrated sting.

According to his Telegraph obituary, Moynihan fled from Spain to the Philippines for fear of being extradited to the U.K. after fraud charges were leveled against him in 1970.

“We as a family have one priority and truth at this point in time,” said Fernandez in a statement to local media after the announcement of Aurora Moynihan’s death, “that is to protect her children from further pain and suffering so that they, and we as a family may take this time to grieve, mourn but most of all celebrate the life of this exceptional human being I will forever have the privilege of calling my sister.”