Trader defrauds cop’s wife of P.8 M

A 56-year-old trader who allegedly defrauded the wife of a ranking police official of the Manila Police District (MPD) of more than P800,000 was finally arrested the other day.

The arrest of Resurreccion Tiangco, of Novaliches, Quezon City, was covered by an arrest warrant issued by Judge Veronica Vicente-De Guzman of Malolos, Bulacan Regional Trial Court Branch 9, according to the MPD’s Warrant Section chief Superintendent Celso Mojares.

Tiangco gave herself up peacefully to the police team led by Inspector Ruben dela Peña. However, she insisted that she was not hiding and has never received a copy of the arrest warrant.

Based on records, Tiangco started to get jewelry from Erlinda Arevalo, wife of MPD homicide section head Chief Inspector Dominador Arevalo Jr., in September 2005. Erlinda is in the jewelry business.

The suspect faithfully paid Erlinda for the first few years, but started to renege on her payments in mid-2007. Tiangco reportedly even managed to get more jewelry from Erlinda but started to make herself unavailable as her accumulated debt rose to P811,300.

Erlinda made several demand letters, but when Tiangco failed to pay up, she filed an estafa case with the Bulacan court in July last year. Since then, Tiangco reportedly went into hiding until her arrest yesterday.

Police are looking into whether Tiangco has other pending cases in court. Tiangco, however, was released by the police after she posted P40,000 bail.  – Nestor Etolle