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Resource: SunStar
NBI-CAR WARNS OF FAKE LAND TITLE SYNDICATES By Ernie N. Olson Jr. The National Bureau of Investigation warned the public to be wary of fake land title syndicates who try to swindle interested lot owners out of huge amounts of money in exchange for spurious documents. This resulted after agents of the NBI Cordillera office arrested one of the alleged masterminds of a fake land title syndicate and three reported female members in an entrapment operation conducted along Diego Siland Street before noon of Friday. A second alleged mastermind of this same ring reportedly remains at large. NBI Regional Director Rickson Chiong identified those arrested as Randy Rivera, Leonora Wasan, Margarita Naimes, Ana Coria-en and Consuelo Romero. One of the leaders of this ring, who is still at large, was also named as Sonny Ancheta. "They were all charged for estafa through falsification of public documents and use of falsified documents committed by a syndicate," Chiong said. He also named their victim as Amelia Timog, of legal age, single, a businesswoman, who resides at Benitez Court, Lower Magsaysay Avenue.
Investigation disclosed that the suspects mortgaged an alleged titled property located at Guisad to the complainant for P200,000, only for the latter to find out later that the title in question was fake, based on a certification issued by the Register of Deeds in Baguio. The suspects were later collared in an entrapment operation at the Davis Law Office at the Manahan Building, 63 Diego Silang Street, at around 11:00 a.m. of July 23. The complainant said she was informed by a real estate agent on July 14 that another real estate agent contacted her about a certain client, who wanted to mortgage his property because he was in dire need of money for the funeral expenses of a family member. Accompanied by this real estate agent, Timog said that she went to the said area in Guisad to conduct an ocular inspection of the 1,000 square meter parcel of land and finding it suitable to her expectations, agreed to meet the owner the following day. On July 15, she met Rivera, who introduced himself then as 'Fernando Lu,' the owner of the said lot and they agreed that he would mortgage it to Timog for P200,000, payable in six months with an interest of five percent monthly. All other expenses like P3,000 for attorney's fees, P4,000 for the annotation of the title and BIR taxes, would also be shouldered by 'Lu.' The banks being closed then because it was a declared holiday, she was only able to give 'Lu' an initial amount of P23,000 then. "The next day, we met again in the law office of Liz Davis and I was about to give him the balance of the loan, but he told me that he did not have any chequing account. So I gave him P10,000 to open one so that he can issue me postdated cheques to cover the loan. He wasn't able to open a chequing account then because it would take one week to do so, so he opened a savings account in the meantime. After explaining to me his predicament, I took pity and gave him P130,000 in cash with the promise that he would come back after a week to give me several postdated cheques with a total of P250,000, representing the loan and interest for six months," Timog narrated. However, after she handed the amount to 'Lu' in exchange for the owner's copy of the land title, she was surprised that he and his companions divided the money among themselves. Putting her doubts aside, they agreed that she would give 'Lu' the last payment of P20,000 in the same law office on July 23. Later, when the title was brought to the Register of Deeds for annotation, she was surprised when personnel there confiscated it and said that it was not authentic. She immediately requested the Register of Deeds to issue a certification to this effect and contacted the NBI-CAR. Chiong said there really is such a person named Fernando Lu, who owns a similar parcel of land, but that he was not the same person Rivera impersonated, in order to swindle prospective victims. Date: July 26, 2004 issue |