2 women nabbed for credit card fraud

The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) arrested two women for withdrawing some P5.2 million using counterfeit foreign credit cards during an operation in Greenhills, San Juan.

NBI Director Reynaldo Wycoco said suspects Jhoanna Cosim and Marilou de Guzman have been taken to an NBI detention cell.

In his report to Wycoco, lawyer Elfren Meneses, chief of the Anti-Fraud and Computer Crime Division (AFCCD), said the suspects were arrested while trying to make cash advances using counterfeit credit cards at a bank in San Juan.

The NBI said the suspects had made some P5.2 million cash advances from the credit card company, whose large retailers computer system was hacked during the first week of July 2004.

Meneses said the suspects were among those who benefited from the hacking, eventually making cash advances.

He said the name of the credit card holder and the issuing bank embossed on the card were different from the name of the real owner and issuer of the card.

When frisked, the suspects presented fake US passports and licenses from the Philippine Regulatory Commission. — Cecille Suerte Felipe