More estafa cases filed against Legacy head

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp. (PDIC) has filed two more complaints of syndicated estafa before the Department of Justice (DOJ) against Legacy owner Celso delos Angeles Jr. and other officers of the Legacy Group for siphoning off funds of the Rural Bank of Carmen in Cebu and the Nation Bank in Negros Occidental through fraudulent transactions.

RB Carmen and Nation Bank, two of 12 Legacy-affiliated banks, are under PDIC receivership since December 2008.

Among those charged in the RB Carmen case were seven Legacy officers, namely, Alexis Petralba, Roy Hilario, Rafael Rafanan Jr., Namnama Pasetes, Cecil Invencion, Mylen Banez, and Juan Labobo.

Investigations revealed that delos Angeles and his co-conspirators created 30 fictitious investment loans amounting to P136.7 million from December 2007 to February 2008, and made it appear that proceeds equivalent to more than P104 million were deposited to the savings account of Fusion Capital Corp. (FCC) with RB Carmen. In a Senate investigation hearing, delos Angeles publicly admitted that he owns FCC.

The complaint stated that Hilario, Pasetes, Invencion and Rafanan withdrew more than P104 million from the savings account of FCC and used this amount for payment of marketing incentives, for solicitation of deposits and deposit placements, to other Legacy banks and related corporations.

The investment loans were later erased from the books after the loans (worth P136.7 million) were assigned to Juan Labobo and Mylen Banez, in exchange for properties overvalued by P131.5 million.

In the Nation Bank case, delos Angeles and four other Legacy officers allegedly conspired in creating 2,370 motorcycle loans amounting to P130.4 million and diverting the proceeds of these loans to the personal accounts of delos Angeles and Roy Hilario.

Delos Angeles and Hilario used the loan proceeds to pay for the expenditures and fund requirements of Legacy-related corporations such as Hacienda Busay Inc., United Farmers Sugar Corp., and Legacy Motors Inc., and to cover for the monthly allowances of delos Angeles.

Among those charged in the Nation Bank complaint were Delos Angeles, Petralba, Hilario, and Ampere Elman.

The PDIC had filed a total of 17 cases against Legacy-affiliated banks of which 13 are criminal and four are for recovery of money and/or property. The PDIC continues to build cases to prosecute responsible officers of Legacy-affiliated banks.