NBI breaks up Chinese extort gang in Angeles

MANILA, Philippines—National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) agents raided an Angeles City hotel at dawn on Friday being used as a base for “blackmail” by a syndicate of foreigners, a bureau official said.

Agents of the NBI Investigation Services headed by Deputy Director Ruel Lasala raided 26 rooms of the Sothernberg Hotel in Clark, Pampanga.

Lawyer Daniel Daganzo, NBI Foreign Liaison Division head, said 52 Chinese were arrested for financial fraud for allegedly threatening and extorting money from people in Taiwan and China.

He said the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Manila was the main complainant in the case.

Daganzo said the suspects who were males and females in their 20s and 30s had posed as tourists. He noted that they sported the same tattoo designs on their backs, arms and legs, and that at the hotel they always declined room service or to have their rooms cleaned.

Daganzo said at least 100 telephone units, laptops, two-way radios and Internet cables were found in the rooms that had been divided into cubicles.

The group’s modus operandi, Lasala said, was to identify a rich target in either China or Taiwan and research their backgrounds, financial status, irregular habits, illicit dealings or affairs.

The syndicate would then call their target by using the local facilities and threaten him or her with exposure unless he or she came up with the equivalent of P1.5 million to be deposited in the group’s bank account.

The suspects pretended to be government authorities and this frightened the victims even more.

Also found in a room was a white board listing names of possible victims of the syndicate along with points earned by an “operator.”

The suspects declined to say anything, insisting that they were “tourists.”

Lasala said they were looking into possible Filipino partners of the Chinese nationals.

He said the suspects would be charged with violation of Republic Act. No. 8484, or the Access Devices Regulation Act of 1998.—Nancy C. Carvajal