Quezon City police nab con artist

Photo taken from qcpdpnp.com

MANILA, Philippines—An alleged swindler’s attempt to pull the same trick twice on the same person led to the arrest in an entrapment operation of the con artist, who had allegedly duped a real estate company administrator out of P3.3 million by pawning a lot using a fake land title in Quezon City.

Investigators at the Anonas station of the Quezon City Police District (QCPD) said that two identification cards bearing the names Rita Lontoc and Nemia Raras were confiscated from the suspect. One purported to be a Professional Regulation Commission card of Raras as a medical doctor and the other a Social Security System card bearing the name Lontoc.

SPO1 Morell Carranza, case investigator, told the Inquirer that Lontoc, 38, said she was a casual employee of the University of the Philippines in Los Baños, Laguna. But Carranza said her claims and names had yet to be verified as she had apparently been using different identities for a long time.

According to Carranza, Lontoc was arrested at around 9 a.m. Tuesday at the FH Manere Property Group office at the corner of Matahimik Street and V. Luna Avenue in Barangay (village) Malaya, when she returned to get an additional P1 million from office administrator Florenda Lim for the property she had pawned for P3.3 million.

“She (Lontoc) thought she could get more money for the lot because it worked the first time,” the case investigator said.

The arrest stemmed from a complaint filed by Lim in which she claimed she first met Lontoc on November 6 last year when she expressed interest in pawning a 600-square-meter commercial lot along Regalado Avenue in Fairview.

Carranza told the Inquirer that according to Lim, Lontoc said that the lot was worth around P24 million but she needed the money and would settle for pawning it to the real estate company for a much smaller amount.

The case investigator said that the women agreed on P3.3 million and that Lontoc promised to redeem the lot on Jan. 25. But after the transaction, when Lim proceeded to the Land Registration Authority to have the title to the lot annotated, the agency confiscated the land title, informing her it was fake.

The revelation, coupled with Lontoc’s failure to redeem the pawned property, prompted Lim to lodge a complaint with the police. Lontoc, who was unaware that her con game had already been discovered, called up Lim asking for an additional P1 million for the property she pawned.

Carranza said that as soon as Lontoc turned up on Tuesday morning at the real estate agency office and received the P1 million check as well as P5,000 in cash, she was placed under arrest by QCPD policemen.

The case investigator told the Inquirer that they were looking into the possibility that Lontoc previously swindled other victims whom Carranza encouraged to come forward.

Lontoc remains detained at the Anonas police station and faces charges of swindling and concealing her true identity.