QC cop wanted for decade-old investment scam nabbed

A Quezon City policeman wanted for 10 counts of estafa in connection with his alleged involvement in an investment scam has been arrested.

SPO1 Honorio Negrito, 52, was arrested on Thursday at Barangay West Crame in Quezon City based on the arrest warrant issued by Judge Edith Mina-Aguba of the Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 100. Bail for his release was set at P400,000.

Based on police records, Negrito’s last assignment was at the Cubao police station.

Supt. Rodelio Marcelo, chief of the Quezon City Police District’s Criminal Investigation and Detection Unit, said the investment scheme started in 2005.

Negrito promised investors, some of them policemen, a monthly interest of P6,000 for every investment of P100,000, Marcelo told reporters.

P300K to P1M investments

Although only 10 complainants filed a complaint against Negrito, Marcelo said he believed there were probably “a hundred more investors who invested different amounts [ranging from P300,000 to a million].”

“Some of them are police officers who did not want to be involved in a controversy,” he added.

Marcelo said that the scam was running smoothly until last year when some policemen confronted Negrito after he failed to give them what he promised.

Negrito, who had no previous criminal record before he was charged with estafa, remains detained at Camp Karingal.