Man blackmailing ex-girlfriend nabbed in Iligan City

ILIGAN CITY — A 25-year-old man blackmailing his 17-year-old former girlfriend was arrested by the National Bureau of Investigation-Iligan District Office (NBI-ILDO) in an entrapment operation on Tuesday.

Lawyer Jamal Dimaporo, NBI-ILDO head, said Charlton Balanay, a resident of Barangay Santiago, Iligan City, was caught inside a lodging house in this city on April 9.

Rescued in the same operation was the girl he was allegedly about to molest.

Their operation was conducted after the girl, a senior high school student, sought the NBI’s help after Balanay threatened to post her nude photos on the internet if she would not reconcile with him, Dimaporo added.

According to Dimaporo, the two got into a relationship in 2015 when the girl was only 13 years old and he was 21. They recently broke up but Balanay allegedly kept on sending chat messages to the girl threatening to post her compromising photos online if she refused to get back with him.

Later, Balanay began sending her indecent photos to the latter’s classmates, prompting the NBI to hatch the entrapment operation, which involved the girl agreeing to meet Balanay in the lodging house.

The NBI was able to seize Balanay’s cellular phone with the pieces of evidence, including their chat exchanges, that showed he was blackmailing the teenager.

The girl is now at the custody of the Iligan City Social Welfare and Development.

Dimaporo said Balanay, now held by NBI-ILDO, would be charged today before the city prosecutor’s office for grave coercion, violation of the Anti-Child Pornography Act, violation of the Anti-Photo and Video Voyeurism Act and violation of the Cybercrime Prevention Act.