“The idea that the police cannot ask questions of
the person that knows most about the crime is an infamous decision.” Edwin
Meese III
By Alex P. Vidal
If not for the tips
provided by the Manila-based Taipei Economic and Cultural Office (TECO) to the
Philippine National Police (PNP) in Manila, the 44 Taiwanese nationals arrested
in two raids conducted in the districts of Mandurriao and Jaro in Iloilo City
last July 9 for cyber money laundering and telecommunications fraud would still
be operating until today.
If they were already
in Iloilo City as early as March 2014, why is it that their operations for the
last four months were never detected?
With their number,
Ilonggos must have seen some if not all of them in shopping malls and in other
public places.
For sure, they also
commuted in cabs and passenger jeeps and mixed with crowd when they went
outside. Hence, the PNP’s intelligence radar should have monitored, or at least
gathered reports about the existence of these visitors in two prominent
subdivisions.
We’re lucky that these
cyber criminals were not terrorists: they would have blown a large part of our
city to smithereens. They would have murdered a lot of Ilonggos, plant bombs in
schools, government buildings and business establishments. Ilonggos would have
been caught flat-footed while the city was being attacked.
LONG
Four months is a long
period for the terrorists to prepare or launch a sneak or kamikaze attack. We
hate to stretch our imagination too far, but in dealing with terrorists, it is
always better to be two steps ahead than be sorry and dead.
The sleuthing job for
the activities of these Taiwanese visitors was supposed to be not hard. If they
rented a house at Phase 5 Imperial VI Subdivision in Brgy. Guzman-Jesena,
Mandurriao and at Ledesco Village in Jaro, the residents would have noticed suspicious
body movements because of their number.
It’s very unusual for
more than 20 persons—all foreign nationals—to stay in one rented subdivision
house for more than one month without rousing the suspicion or curiosity of
residents in the neighborhood, especially the village officials.
All 44 suspects may
have swapped "duties" in the two houses, which they used as
headquarters, every now and then. Different faces mixing in two different
houses.
According to one
elderly male resident, he suspected something fishy when the Taiwanese visitors
would never go out, thus he called the attention of their unnamed village
official.
OFFICIAL
Police should
investigate why this village official did not alert them earlier. In
intelligence report gathering, any tip—serious or just a slip of the
tongue—should be considered a breakthrough. No stone should be left unturned
during the verification stage.
Supt. Bernard Yang,
chief of the PNP’s anti-cyber-crime group based in Camp Crame, Quezon City,
told the Ilolio press that the syndicate’s main targets were citizens of
mainland China.
They reportedly
pretended as representatives of police, insurance companies and courts and
duped or coerced gullible individuals and companies mostly in mainland China to
deposit large amount of money in a “safe” account or face prosecution for money
laundering.
It’s a form of
extortion racket.
Despite the delay in
information of the syndicate’s presence in our city, we must still laud city
police director, Senior Supt. Ruperto Floro, and city police intelligence
chief, Supt. Ipil Dueñas and their men, for raiding the house at Ledesco
Village where ring leader Chun His Hsu and 19 other fellow Taiwanese nationals
were arrested.
We must credit them
because no life was lost during the raids, conducted through the search
warrants issued by Regional Trial Court, Branch 66 Manila Judge Rainelda
Estacaio-Montesa.
Because nobody
resisted arrest, police did not have hellish moments to manacle all of them. An
excellent job for the raiding team.
We hope all the
syndicate members were accounted for and no one managed to slip away. We also
hope that police will look into a possibility that the syndicate may have
Filipino contacts.
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