Money for ‘ghost project’: NBI agents nab woman who ‘duped’ Australian

A woman, who allegedly swindled an Australian national for three quarters of a million pesos, was arrested in an entrapment operation by the National Bureau of Investigation yesterday.

Shiela Gorres Reguero was caught in the act of receiving P34,000 in cash and a check from Robert Macartney, who she allegedly duped into doing business with her.

However, the capital that Macartney had allegedly given to Reguero for their business was instead spent by the latter for other things.

Macartney filed a complaint with the NBI after he found out that Reguero was fooling him by making him believe that their business partnership is doing fine when in fact there was no business at all despite him already giving a total of P760,000 as capital.

Macartney recalled that sometime in December 2007 while he was on vacation in Bantayan Island, Reguero allegedly made a business proposal with him to engage in buying scrap metals from a sunken Japanese vessel.

Reguero reportedly brought with her the alleged owner of the vessel, a certain Jerry Lasala Go, that sank somewhere in San Isidro, Leyte.

Macartney said he was persuaded to finance the business after seeing the deed of sale and other pertinent documents.

Macartney said he issued a check amounting to P300,000 in favor of Reguero last February and another P100,000 last March.

Aside from the two checks, he also allegedly regularly sent money to Reguero from Australia via Western Union.

Macartney said that he had sent up to P760,000 as investment for the business.

Last month, Macartney said he decided to come back here to see the project site.

However, Reguero allegedly discouraged him from going to Leyte because of security problems.

Taking Reguero’s advice, Macartney did not go to Leyte, but secretly hired a person to inspect the supposed project site.

To his surprise, the person he hired reported to him that there was no sunken Japanese vessel being salvaged for scrap metal in Leyte.

Without Reguero’s knowledge that Macartney is already aware of her scam, she again demanded another amount from him to fast track the retrieval of the remaining scrap metal.

Macartney took advantage of the opportunity to have Reguero arrested by seeking assistance from the NBI.

NBI agent Bernard de la Cruz immediately set up the entrapment that resulted to Reguero’s arrest.

Reguero will be charged for violation of the Article 315 of the Revised Penal Code or estafa. — Fred P. Languido/NLQ