Investment ‘agent’ narrates money trail

ILIGAN CITY—Maria Donna Coyme, an investment “agent” of Aman Futures Group, has disclosed to the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) the bank accounts of the group where money collected from investors were deposited.

The bank accounts were those of Manuel Amalilio and Fernando Luna, executives of Aman Futures that ran a Ponzi scheme that duped some 15,000 people of P12 billion, she said.

Coyme, one of the 38 people on the Bureau of Immigration’s lookout bulletin, appeared before the NBI District Office here on Friday and said she would provide investigators with a copy of Aman Futures’ daily transactions from Sept. 3 to Oct. 10. She promised the NBI full cooperation in exchange for being accepted as a state witness.

Alex Cabornay, chief of the NBI-Iligan District Office, said Coyme had not surrendered as no warrant for her arrest had been issued by the court.

In her statement, Coyme said she began as an investor in Aman Futures in May but later became one of the many agents of the firm tasked with managing and placing money into the group.

An agent is someone who manages funds from several people who pooled their money so they can comply with the minimum investment required by the group. The minimum investment, which was initially pegged at P1,000, later reached P200,000, according to reports.

Coyme, who initially thought Aman Futures was involved in foreign exchange trading, said she became convinced that the group was aboveboard after noticing that prominent people—lawyers, politicians and policemen—were putting in money.

She narrated the process by which money was “invested” in the accounts.

Gate pass

She said interested investors must first secure a note from Fernando or Nimfa Luna, which served as a “gate pass” for people to deposit money in bank accounts identified by the Lunas.

The corresponding deposit slips were brought to the Aman Futures office, which, in turn, would issue the investors corresponding receipts indicating the amount of capital, total amount due, interest rate and due date or payout of the “investment.”

Coyme said some agents charged anywhere from P500 to P2,000 for the gate pass. She said she charged 2 percent from the money being invested to cover expenses for the transactions.

She said she had personally hired personnel to attend to investors in her group.

The bulk of investments came in the middle of July after Pagadian Mayor Samuel Co issued a temporary permit to Aman Futures for it to operate, she said.

In an earlier interview, Co said the city government had canceled Aman Future’s business permit because it had failed to present the required documents. He said a temporary permit was issued for Aman Futures to pay its investors and not to receive new investments.

Coyme said checks issued by Fernando and Nimfa Luna for payout or return on investments began bouncing on Sept. 3. To cover the bad checks, Coyme said the Lunas paid some investors initial cash amounts with the promise of more payments in the future.

Beginning early September, Coyme said the amount of money coming in could no longer cover those it owed. It was then that the Lunas began instructing their staff in the Aman Futures office to tell investors that the group was having problems with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), she said.

The SEC, according to the Lunas, had been delaying the issuance of a supposed “secondary license and a separate Amla certification.” Amla refers to the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2001, which penalizes money laundering and looks into suspicious transactions involving a total amount in excess of P500,000 in one banking day.

The Lunas and Dhurwin Wenceslao, a trusted associate of the Lunas whom Coyme described as the person who knew the transactions and secrets of Aman Futures, continued to receive checks and payouts even after the checks for other investors started bouncing for lack of sufficient funds.

Coyme said Aman Futures finally stopped paying out investors at 3 p.m. on Sept. 26, a day before the temporary permit issued by the mayor’s office expired.

Before their disappearance on the night of Sept. 26, the Luna couple instructed the Aman Futures staff to tell investors that payment would resume after the SEC issued the needed documents and to assure them that their money would be returned.