AN INDIVIDUAL who defrauded businessmen by posing as Peter Laviña, then-campaign spokesman of now President Rodrigo Duterte, was arrested by the agents of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI).
In a press conference on Monday, March 6, NBI spokesman Ferdinand Lavin said agents of the NBI Anti-Graft Division (NBI-AGD) apprehended on March 1 Vimbi Flores Avilla.
Lavin said Avilla is a member of a syndicate that defrauds the public by pretending to have connections with the current administration.
The case against Avilla stemmed from a complaint filed by a senior official of the Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI). According to the NBI, an unidentified caller who falsely represented himself as Peter Laviña asked the bank for P1 million to be used allegedly for then-President elect Duterte's victory party.
On June 2, 2016, the NBI acting on the complaints conducted an entrapment operation that further yielded the arrest of a group of individuals, led by Jerico Jay Sauco, in San Pedro, Laguna.
Caught in the act withdrawing the amount from the bank are Sauco and his group.
After their arrest, they told the NBI that the head of the syndicate is Avilla. They also expressed their intention to cooperate in the manhunt operation against the latter.
Seized from Avilla during his arrest last March 1 was his cellphone, which was submitted to the NBI for forensic examination.
The NBI found out, based on messages on Avilla's phone, that the suspect committed another fraud by posing as Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade, where he was able to extort P950,000 from a businessman.
NBI records revealed that Avilla was previously arrested by agents of the Interpol for posing as former Vice President Jejomar Binay to extort money from a business tycoon. (VoxPop Philippines)
