Couple in estafa under tight custody of QC police

The Filipino couple deported from Canada for a pyramid-type scheme are allegedly in danger of physical harm from their victims, and thus remain in police custody. This was the reason given by police for keeping the couple, Janice and Kaye del Rosario, out of the cramped, dark, and stinky detention cell at the Quezon City police district’s Station 6. Janice, 44, and her husband Kaye, 33, were confined in a small inner room adjacent to the air conditioned office of Superintendent Constante Agpaoa, officer in charge of the police precinct and one of the couple’s victims. “I cannot put them there because somebody might just kill them," Agpaoa said, pointing to a cell of around two square meters in size cramped with 20 detainees. Janice and Kaye, who lived in luxury, arrived in the country in signature clothes. They drove flashy Mercedes Benz and BMW X-5 cars in Toronto, and showered friends with expensive perfumes, jewelry and other gifts. “I have been receiving numerous death threats for them. Some of their victims want them dead," the police officer said. Janice has allegedly victimized about 200 police and military officers, including a general, and another colonel. She used the aliases Flordeliza Kong Pace and Flordeliza Tayzon. She was first married to a Tayzon, with whom she has two children, one of who studies in Toronto with a student visa. She has two other sons with Kaye, aged 13 and 8. The couple’s lawyer, former senator Rene Saguisag, said it should not be an issue that his clients were getting “humane treatment" from the police. “If they are treated humanely, that’s good! That should not be an issue. That should not even be discussed," he said hours after visiting his clients in their separate detention room. Agpaoa refused the request of GMANews.TV to see the couple or have them photographed. Instead, he gave their police file photo taken the previous day. Saguiusag earlier said he had advised his clients not to talk to the media about the cases they are facing. “I am doing what I can to get them out," Saguisag said when interviewed by phone. He is protesting the plan of the police to charge the del Rosarios with syndicated estafa, a non-bailable offense that carries a life sentence. “This is not Multitel or Balajay," Saguisag said, referring to Rosario and Saturnino Balajay of Multitel Corp. who were charged in 2003 with syndicated estafa in connection with investments they failed to pay back in a “pyramiding" type of business. “The victims here are not farmers, cooperatives, or associations that solicited from the public," Saguisag said. “They are only two," he pointed out, referring to Janice and Kaye, a police officer and jail guard before the couple left for Canada in March 2003 and ran away with around P250 million worth of “investments" and personal loans of their clients. “This is a simple case of estafa," Saguisag asserted. “The law has elements and you have to show that the elements are present in a crime to justify why you are charging a person with such a crime," he argued. “If we will not follow the law, then this is a society in decay," he added. Presidential Decree No.1689, issued in April 1980, increased the penalty for estafa to a life sentence, from 12 to 20 years under Article 315 of the Revised Penall Code. The penalty was graduated for cases of swindling or estafa when the fraud involved funds contributed by stockholders or members of rural banks, cooperatives, samahang nayons, or farmers’ associations, or funds solicited by corporations or associations from the public, causing the erosion of confidence in the banking and cooperative system. But Agpaoa justified the consolidation of the estafa complaints into a syndicate estafa, saying the couple used the company JDR Holdings with an address in Tomas Morato, Quezon City in convincing potential clients to invest in a high interest-yielding business, Under PD 1689, forms of swindling or estafa that is not committed by a syndicate may be penalized with a life sentence if the amount of the fraud exceeds P100,000. Agpaoa said the complaints against the couple involved at least P250 million. It was learned that a physician working at the House of Representatives invested P1.2 million to Janice and did not get the money back. In Toronto, Canada where the couple got around C$3.5 million (equivalent to about P145 million)"investments" from people they befriended, they issued checks drawn against the account of Gloval Venture Placement and Trading. Janice managed to make her investors believe that she was engaged in the buying and selling of high-end jewelry. She promised a 10 percent return on their investments in just 10 days. In the Philippines, Janice issued post-dated checks representing five to 10 percent interest earnings on “investments" per month. “For two years, the checks were good until we learned that they had left the country," said Supt. Agpaoa who lost P7.16 million of his life savings and those of his relatives and friends. Cecilia Ramos, a Filipino working as mortgage broker in Canada, wrote in an e-mail to GMANews.TV that she and her partner, Michael Labrecque, lost C$120,000 to Janice. It has been a horror story for us in the last three months after we found out Janice's lack of intention to pay back the money she owed to us," Ramos said. The victims in Canada, mostly Filipinos or foreign nationals married to Filipino women, learned about the deception in early October when the post-dated checks issued by Janice started to bounce. According to Labrecque, Janice began soliciting for investments in August 2006, three months after the Canadian government handed down its final rejection of the del Rosarios’ application for asylum. “From then on, with persistence and determination to investigate her background, we discovered all her lies and numerous charges pending in the Philippines," Ramos wrote. Since the del Rosario couple arrived in Manila on January 22, a number of their victims have shown up at the police precinct to lodge their complaints against them. It was learned from police sources that the couple has four standing arrest warrants from San Juan, Makati, and Paranaque. They also have two bench warrants without bail for offenses dating back to 1997. The same sources said the anti-fraud divisions of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group of the Philippine National Police and the National Bureau of Investigation are conducting separate investigations of the couple, basically for separate complaints of fraud. - GMANews.TV