PDEA, AMLC seize house to enforce freeze order on Parojinog family assets

CEBU CITY—Authorities enforced a freeze order on a property owned by the Parojinog family, believed to be behind the notorious Kuratong Baleleng crime and drug group, and seized a house in a high-end subdivision at the village of Guadalupe, Cebu City.

Wilkins Villanueva, director of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) in Central Visayas (PDEA), and officials of the Anti-Money Laundering Council, went to the upscale subdivision Nichols Park in Guadalupe to enforce the freeze order.

The two-story house, estimated to be worth P5 million, is owned by the couple Artemio and Daisy Parojinog-Salas. Both have pending arrest warrants and are wanted for illegal drug charges.

Daisy is the sister of Ozamis Mayor Reynaldo Parojinog, who was killed in a police raid in July 2017 in Ozamis City.

Villanueva said the freeze order on the Cebu City house will be just one of the many freeze orders on real estate property owned by the Parojinogs. He said he believed the family also owned other real estate properties in Ozamis, the town of Maasin in Southern Leyte and Cebu province.

“This just shows that this drug group has been operating in Cebu, Leyte and Ozamis,” said Villanueva.

The freeze order was issued by the Special Second Division of the Court of Appeals.

Villanueva added that the Salas couple had allegedly laundered the other funds of the crime group accumulated from drug sales.

According to Artemio Baculi, an official of the AMLC anti-drug trafficking division, the Salas couple has seven bank accounts, 12 vehicles and firearms that were also issued freeze orders.

Baculi said the bank accounts contained millions of pesos. “Our bank inquiry is ongoing but this involves millions that did not commensurate with their source of income,” said the AMLC official.

The declared income of the couple was around P20,000 per month, said Baculi, “but they managed to transact millions and they were able to acquire these properties.”

TSB