NBI: 4 suspects who stole P25.66 million iPhones charged

MANILA, Philippines — Criminal charges were filed against four people for allegedly stealing iPhones worth P25.66 million from an information technology solutions provider, the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) said on Friday afternoon.

NBI Director Jaime Santiago said charges of qualified theft were filed against Joriz Managa, Kim de la Cruz, Richard Alegonza and Vina Liza Garillo before the Department of Justice.

A separate complaint for violating the Anti-Money Laundering Act was filed against Managa and De la Cruz.

Santiago said the suspects allegedly conspired in illegal transactions as employees of Productivity Technology Services Inc., a company engaged in the business of trading computer hardware, software, electronic gadgets and other allied services.

Santiago said Managa made it appear there were legitimate demands for iPhones by fabricating customer orders when in fact there were no orders.

To conceal the deliveries, Alegonza, as logistics supervisor, deleted entries pertaining to the falsified orders from the account system and manual record of inventories.

Up to 73 orders from customers were fabricated. Seven purchase request forms and a purchase order were also falsified, the NBI said.

Managa and De la Cruz agreed that no actual delivery would be made for the purchase orders.

Garillo, meanwhile, deleted the system entries to prevent the company from tracking the fraudulent deliveries.

The suspects stole, sold the iPhones and split the proceeds among themselves, according to Santiago.

He said the NBI is committed to bringing all the perpetrators to justice.