‘AMLA useful to pyramid scam victims’

The new anti-money laundering law will be helpful to victims of pyramiding scams since they can seek the freezing of the perpetrator’s assets and bank accounts, the Department of Justice (DOJ) said yesterday.

The DOJ said the new Anti-Money Laundering Law (AMLL) will be applied against lending and investment firms that turned out to be bogus.

But the law will not be used in cases committed prior to its enactment. Instead, the original Philippine version of the law will be applied, DOJ Undersecretary Jose Calida said.

Calida made the explanation before hundreds of people who trooped to the DOJ yesterday in filing charges against various firms and people they suspected as "pyramiders."

He told the complainants that the Anti-Money Laundering Law Council (AMLC) may evaluate the suspected account and seek a court order to freeze it.

Calida said both laws define pyramiding scams or syndicated estafa as predicate offenses that the AMLC can look into.

"The difficulty lies if the money is transferred to other accounts. But at least now suspicious transactions may be investigated," Calida said.

The amended AML lowers the threshold for bank transactions to be scrutinized from P4 million to P500,000.

The Philippines modified the original law after the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF) threatened to impose sanctions if it failed to adopt recommendations to lower the threshold, among other measures to stop the flow of "dirty money."

Calida, however, said they will still apply the old law in the complaint against Multinational Telecom Investors Corp. (Multitel).

State Prosecutor Geronimo Sy said DOJ filed charges of syndicated estafa against a couple and their nine cohorts in the P15 billion Multitel case.

The case was based on the complaint by 25 people who claimed to be representing 1,981 other investors of Multitel.

Sy said no bail was recommended for the 11 respondents, all Multitel officials, who face the death penalty or life imprisonment if convicted under the original AML.