INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
LUCENA CITY — Police in Cavite province on Wednesday arrested three swindlers after they duped a 72-year-old woman in Bacoor City of P150,000 using the “budol-budol” scam.
In a report, Colonel Christopher Lozano, Cavite police chief, said Rolando Samson, Mark Sanchez, and Marilyn Geroy, all of Dasmariñas City, approached the woman, a resident of Barangay Molino IV around 11 a.m.. She was walking alone in the town proper.
The car-riding suspects, pretending to be unfamiliar with the place, asked for her help in buying a motor engine in exchange for a commission and showed her a bagful of money bills.
Through various schemes, the suspects convinced the victim to withdraw her money from a local bank, amounting to P150,000.
Once the victim returned to the car with her money, the suspects tricked her by giving her the bag of money, most of it made from cut paper, but they kept for themselves the genuine cash bills from the bank.
The suspects then dropped the victim off along the roadside, with instruction to wait for the call about the motor engine transaction.
When the victim realized that the bag contained only P1,050 in genuine bills, she reported the incident to the police, who immediately conducted an operation that led to the arrest of the suspects in Barangay Bayanan, also in Bacoor in the afternoon.
The police recovered the P150,000 from the suspects.
Investigators said Samson was carrying a hand grenade, and Sanchez had a caliber.45 pistol with five bullets.
The three suspects were detained and are facing criminal charges. INQ
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