Pinoy on trial in Hawaii for identity theft, fraud

A Filipino is currently making big news on the island paradise of Hawaii. Henry Jacinto Calucag, 58, is in the news not for a great achievement Filipinos could be proud of, but because he is on trial this week allegedly for assuming his dead friend’s identity and stealing his properties. Calucag was on America’s Most Wanted, and described him as a “bank fraud convict" for his involvement in a “trail of theft, fraud and disappearances" over the last 10 years. Police in Hawaii said three of Calucag’s business partners all went on separate trips to the Philippines to buy property, but none of them ever returned home. Police finally cornered him on September 3, 2006 after a polo match in Honolulu where he was known as Hank Jacinto. AMW’s website said Calucag used several aliases – Ponce Enriquez, Bill Franco, Ricky Bonze, Hank Calucag, Henry Calucag, Henry Ponce Calucag, Henry Ponce Calucag Jr., Henry Y. Jacinto, Hank Calvcag, Henry Ponce Calvcag Jr, Blu Franco, Henry P. Jacinto, Enrique Jacinto, Enrique Ponce Jacinto, Hank Jacinto, Henry Jacinto, Herman Rubirosa and Hernon Rubirosa. Prosecutors in Hawaii have called him a “career criminal" who duped and conned Hawaiian businessmen for years and that the ventures he started in the Philippines point to more of the same. “With his capture, they hope that a prolific con man’s legacy of deceit has been ended," AMW said. During Monday’s trial, Christopher Elwin, a brother of Kauai businessman John Elwin who disappeared after he left Hawaii for a trip to the Philippines in May 2006 with Jacinto, revealed that Elwin had money in Swiss bank accounts when he died. Elwin’s body was found in a province outside Metro Manila with gunshot wounds to the head and chest. At the continuation of the trial on Tuesday, Elwin’s girlfriend, Kirsten Flood, said Calucag called her months after Elwin’s death with a disturbing information that “John had women pregnant in, like Southeast Asia, somewhere." A report on Hawaii broadcast channel’s website said the defense was trying to portray Elwin as a womanizer who had enemies in the Philippines. The report said Calucag claimed that Elwin gave him a property in Kauai to pay off a large debt, but a Kauai police officer said on Monday that the Filipino did not tell him about the debt when he interviewed him following his arrest in September. Police earlier said Elwin’s had cash assets worth more than a couple of million dollars when he died. According to the case profile in AMW’s website, said Hawaiian police found out that apart from Elwin, two of Calucag’s business partners – Arthur Young and Douglas Ho – disappeared on a trip to the Philippines. Young disappeared in 1990 while Ho traveled with Calucag in 2004 and was reported missing by his family in January 2005. Money, property, or both money and property of the three men allegedly ended up in Calucag’s possession after their disappearance or death. “Investigators on the Calucag case say he’s a master con artist who may be responsible for swindling millions of dollars in cash and property away from their rightful owners," the case profile stated. Calucag is facing first-degree identity theft, first-degree theft, and fraud for allegedly forging a document to assume title of a Kauai property that belonged to Elwin. Calucag claimed to own ProNetwork Center, a successful tech company that allegedly engaged in business with the Office of Homeland Security. Its office address, police found out, was a single mailbox in the Philippines and there was no Homeland Security contract. Prior to his arrest in September, the company’s website, AMW said, boasted of an annual revenue of $65 million, employed 63 people and contracts with the US Department of Defense. After the arrest, the company website no longer mentioned Hank Jacinto or ProNetwork’s annual earnings and reduced the staff to only 16. Before venturing into ‘"business" in Hawaii, Calucag was said to be driving a beat-up car in the Philippines, lived above a friend’s paint shop and, at one time, borrowed a small amount from another friend. AMW said Calucag had known Elwin way back in 1994 when he was able to move within the elite polo community in Hawaii, using the alias Hank Jacinto. At one time, it was said that Calucag was asked to leave a polo club after he was accused of stealing a pair of one-of-a-kind riding boots from another club member. In 1995, he reportedly pleaded guilty to five counts of bank fraud for depositing five bogus checks into accounts he opened using false names and withdrawing the money. He spent eight months in federal prison for the offense. After that, he supposedly served an additional 16 months in federal prison after admitting that he bought a sport utility car and obtained leases on computers using aliases and false credit histories while on parole. Two months after his arrest in Honolulu in September last year, America’s Most Wanted said its agents traveled to the Philippines to investigate the businesses Calucag established in Hawaii. Calucag also listed Philippine Escrow and Title Corp and an orphanage program called The Philippine Mission Foundation among his engagements. All listed a business office in Quezon City. But AMW said the office address given “didn’t look like the offices of a multi-million dollar corporations" as it housed only a few desks and neighboring businesses interviewed said workers came and went with little frequency. - GMANews.TV