Ex-PNP official Cesar Mancao now in FBI custody

Former Philippine National Police Senior Supt. Cesar Mancao was taken into custody Thursday morning (US time) by Federal Bureau of Investigation agents who came to his Miami, Florida home in connection with the US espionage case of another former high-ranking PNP official. US authorities reportedly want Mancao to testify in the case of former PNP Senior Supt. Michael Ray Aquino, who was arrested in the US in September last year. The FBI will bring Mancao to New Jersey where he is expected to testify on April 15. Mancao and Aquino have also been linked by local investigators to the 2000 slaying of late public relations man Salvador "Bubby" Dacer and his driver Emmanuel Corbito, along with the alleged rubout of Kuratong Baleleng gang members. Mancao and Aquino operated under the defunct Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force (Paoctf) and fled to the US following the 2001 'Edsa Dos' people power uprising that ousted the administration of former President Joseph Estrada. Both former ranking PNP officials are reportedly close associates of Senator Panfilo Lacson, under whom they served when the lawmaker was still PNP chief during the Estrada administration. Aquino was nabbed by US authorities for allegedly conspiring with Filipino-American FBI agent Leandro Argoncillo in acquiring classified US documents and transmitting these to opposition politicians in Manila. Aquino and Argoncillo are both charged with conspiracy, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a fine of $250,000, and acting as an unregistered agent subject to the direction of a foreign official, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a fine of $250,000. Argoncillo is further charged with unauthorized use of a US government computer to obtain and transmit classified information to persons not entitled to receive that information, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years' imprisonment and a $250,000 fine. Aquino was arrested at his New York home, while Argoncillo was apprehended in New Jersey.-GMANews.TV