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| By Christine F. Herrera The NBI has warned the public against investing in Abba-Deo Prime Express Corp. or Apex and Frontier Moneyfold, companies set up by the same “swindlers” behind the Royal Manchester Five Trading Corp. owned by Cyrus Yap Hao, who has reportedly fled the country. At least 77 investors have filed a case against Hao, Manchester Five’s incorporators—including its vice president for marketing, Renato San Juan, as well as the company’s agents. “The three divisions of the NBI have joined forces and just held a case conference. Our CPA-lawyers and line agents are consolidating the evidence that we have gathered so far to pin down those behind the P2.1-billion multi-currency trading scam,” Director Vicente de Guzman, chief of the NBI Anti-Fraud and Computer Crimes Division, told Standard Today. De Guzman’s division is the lead agency tasked by NBI Director Nestor Mantaring to go after Manchester Five and its top officials and agents. Investors yesterday confirmed that top agents of Royal Manchester Eric Magtabog and Angelina Mendoza met with them during a “general assembly” last week and asked them not to file a case against the company. They said they were offered a “rehabilitation program” that promised to return the money they had invested. The investors, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisal from “moneyed people” in Royal Manchester, told Standard Today that Hao had assigned the top agents to form two separate companies. Apex and Moneyfold were given separate offices near the Royal Manchester offices on the 15th floor of One San Miguel Condominium on San Miguel Avenue, Ortigas. Apex was already operating and had in fact enticed hundreds of investors to pump in P43.96 million into peso accounts and some $230,148 into dollar accounts. Apex turned those investments over to Royal Manchester. Moneyfold was unable to start operations after the Royal Manchester scam was exposed. Magtabog yesterday said his family had not abandoned their house in Vista Real and complained that he had been getting threats from people he did not know who warned him that his children would be kidnapped. “I fear for my family. People I don’t know are threatening to kidnap my kids. If I need to die because I trusted RMF so much, so be it, but I beg them to spare my kids and my wife,” Magtabog said. He said he goes to the NBI every day to follow up on the case, but a check with the NBI said Magtabog had not turned up even once. De Guzman said people responsible for the “fraudulent scheme,” including the Royal Manchester officers, had been put under surveillance. Senior supervising agent Palmer Mallari, anti-fraud executive officer, assured complainants that theNBI was doing its best to seek justice for the victims. “We cannot tell you exactly what we have achieved so far in the course of our investigation because we did not want you to get excited. Let me assure you though that something will turn up in a matter of days,” Mallari told the complainants. Liezl Dejon, who is employed in a recruitment agency, said that in 2005 she invested P400,000 of her husband’s budget for their new home. “Since 2005, we kept on renewing our investment and added some capital until it grew to P1 million. Last December, we decided to start building our new home but when we were about to withdraw our money, we were told that the RMF president was gone and that he left with our money,” Dejon said. |