Former US Navy Director nabbed in Pampanga

SAN PEDRO CITY –– A former senior officer of the US Navy was arrested by the US Immigration Fugitives Search Unit (FSU) and local authorities in Angeles City, said police officials who took part in the joint operation on Thursday.

Xavier Fernando Monroy, the former director of operations of the US Navy’s Military Sealift Command Office in Busan, Republic of Korea (ROK), was arrested Wednesday morning at Noveau Residences in Barangay Cacutud in Angeles City, Pampanga province, where FSU agents served an arrest warrant issued against him by the US district court of Columbia on May 20.

The 62-year-old former Navy officer faced charges of conspiracy to commit bribery, bribery, false statements, and obstruction of justice.

Monroy was described as an “undocumented alien and (a) risk to public safety and security being a fugitive from justice” in official communication from the US Embassy in Manila to local police when it requested assistance in apprehending the subject.

Police Major Rix Villareal, Batangas intelligence police officer, said there had been “sightings” of Monroy in Batangas province since “over the last month,” until authorities tracked him down in Pampanga.

Aside from the Batangas police, the Presidential Anti-Corruption Commission and the US Diplomatic Security also took part in the arrest, said Villareal.

“We do not know if he owned the house (in Angeles City), but he stayed there (for a time),” Villareal said in a telephone interview on Wednesday.

Monroy was detained at the Batangas police headquarters, pending the results of his test for the coronavirus disease, which has become a police protocol for all persons arrested during the pandemic.

He would be turned over to FSU once test results became available, Villareal added.

On the US Department of Justice website, it said Monroy allegedly “engaged in a conspiracy to commit bribery” with a ROK-based company that provided ship husbanding services to the US Navy in 2013.

LZB