{"id":2295,"date":"2012-12-04T20:01:44","date_gmt":"2012-12-04T20:01:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/?p=2295"},"modified":"2012-12-04T20:01:44","modified_gmt":"2012-12-04T20:01:44","slug":"former-janitor-and-driver-duped-thousands-of-php12b","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/?p=2295","title":{"rendered":"Former janitor and driver duped thousands of PHP12B"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s almost unbelievable that a company owned and managed by a former janitor and driver was able to dupe some 15,000 people through a pyramid scam. Among those enticed by high returns on their money included politicians, soldiers, policemen, and overseas Filipino workers (OFWs). <\/em><\/p>\n

According to agents of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) the amount involved is estimated to be PHP12 billion (AUD285,700,000). The NBI identified the company as Aman Futures Group Phils. Inc. <\/p>\n

\u201cSome of the victims committed suicide and others have become violent and sick when they learned their hard-earned money was gone,\u201d said Virgilio Mendez, NBI deputy director for regional operations services, who was investigating the scam. <\/p>\n

Pictured left is principal suspect Manuel K. Amalilio, the 32-year-old founder of Aman Futures Group Phils. Inc., who is reportedly of Filipino-Malaysian descent. He has left the country for Sabah, Malaysia. Amalilio\u2019s Malaysian name is Mohammad Suffian Saaid.<\/p>\n

According to the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), the Philippines has no extradition or mutual legal assistance treaty with Malaysia.<\/p>\n

The Department of Justice is hopeful that the Interpol or the International Police Organisation will be able to assist in bringing international criminals to justice.<\/p>\n

The first investors of the company were low-income people but professionals and retired employees followed because of the promise of a high return on investment. Market vendors in Pagadian City received as much as 70 per cent return on their P1,000 investment after one week.
\nFernando Luna, a former driver of Amalilio, managed the multi-billion scam. Both Luna and Amalilio and their families are now in hiding. <\/p>\n

NBI sources said that Amalilio owns three private planes and two units at Upper Mckinley Hills Garden Villas in Taguig City. He also owns a house in Cebu City and Dapitan City. Amalilio uses private planes and luxury cars in visiting his offices in Mindanao and Visayas. <\/p>\n

Aman Futures was able to lure investors by offering a 30 to 40 per cent return on investment within eight days, and a 50 to 80 per cent profit for 18 to 20 days. The amount of interest varies depending on the investment or money placements.<\/p>\n

The modus operandi is to issue a post dated cheque for the entire amount of the investment plus interest of as high as 80 percent. After accumulating several billions in investments, the post-dated cheques started bouncing. Investors later discovered that the bank accounts of Aman Futures were either closed or had insufficient funds. <\/p>\n

President Aquino has ordered the NBI to expedite the filing of the case and the arrest of the executives of Aman Futures. <\/p>\n

Agent of Aman Futures killed <\/p>\n

An agent of Aman Futures was killed in a Zamboanga del Sur town after he was abducted by unidentified men in Pagadian. <\/p>\n

Multiple transactions<\/p>\n

Based on the last entry on the computers used by Aman Futures, there were at least 360,000 transactions made with the firm. However, it could not be established exactly how many people had been victimized as some of the victims had multiple transactions.<\/p>\n

Investors should be alerted by high ROI<\/p>\n

Senator Sergio Osme\u00f1a III, chairman of the Senate banks and financial institutions committee, said the higher the return on investment, the higher the risk. \u201cThat should already alert you that what is being offered is a scam,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) has warned the public against investment schemes that offer above-market interest rates, saying promises of very high returns are usually associated with fraud. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s almost unbelievable that a company owned and managed by a former janitor and driver was able to dupe some 15,000 people through a pyramid scam. Among those enticed by high returns on their money included politicians, soldiers, policemen, and overseas Filipino workers (OFWs).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2295"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2295"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2295\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}