NBI employee, volunteer held for P300K extortion

MANILA, Philippines — A job order employee of the National Bureau of Investigation and an NBI volunteer were arrested during a sting in Pasay, with authorities saying the two, together with a third suspect, extorted money from businessmen in Mindanao.

Agents of the NBI organized and transnational crime division nabbed the two suspects in a restaurant at about 1 p.m. on Wednesday. The third suspect remains at large.

NBI Director Melvin Matibag said the job order employee, assigned to the Digital Forensics Laboratory, had been operating in Mindanao and using other people to collect money from businessmen.

Their scheme was exposed after a businessman filed a complaint at the NBI Pagadian district office.

The suspects allegedly posed as NBI agents investigating illegal rice importation in Region 9 and demanded P300,000 in exchange for an import permit.

Although the permit was not released, the suspects allegedly demanded another P30,000 from the businessman.

The NBI said the group had collected about P1.7 million through intimidation.

Recovered from the two suspects were marked money and a .45-caliber handgun, along with a fabricated mission order and unsigned property acknowledgment receipt purportedly from the Philippine Army.

The suspects face charges of robbery with violence or intimidation of persons, extortion, usurpation of authority and other offenses related to the Cybercrime Prevention Act.

The NBI employee also faces a charge for illegal possession of firearms under Republic Act 10591, or the Comprehensive Firearms and Ammunition Regulations Act.