Maid jailed on suspicion of links to ‘dugo-dugo’ gang

MANILA, Philippines – A 25-year-old housemaid claimed she was tricked late Monday afternoon by  members of the so-called “dugo-dugo” gang into giving up nearly P1 million in expensive jewelry belonging to her employers and ended up taking the alleged con artists’ place behind bars.

Beberly Becamon, a stay-in employee at a household on Iron Street in Capitol Hills Subdivision, Old Balara in Tandang Sora, was arrested Tuesday by operatives of the Quezon City Police District Criminal Investigation and Detection Unit on the basis of a complaint filed by her employer, Francisco Santana.

In his complaint Santana said that he lost three high-end wristwatches worth a total of P750,000; a P100,000 diamond ring; a bracelet worth P75,000; and a P50,000 necklace, which Becamon took from a locked closet in his house.

Police Officer 2 Gilmer Mariñas, case investigator, said that Becamon would be charged with qualified theft even though she claimed she was duped into taking them.

According to Mariñas the maid’s co-worker, Dionisio Cairon, told investigators that a little past 4 p.m. on  Monday Becamon was looking for a screwdriver. But when he asked what it was for, Becamon had told him to mind his own business.

Cairon later discovered that Becamon used the instrument to force open the lock on their employer’s closet which held the missing expensive jewelry.

The “dugo-dugo” gang, Mariñas explained, is a group of swindlers who usually call to inform a member of a household that a relative or an employer had been in an accident so they could trick the person at the other end of the line into handing over valuables that the hurt person supposedly needs.

In her statement to the police, Becamon claimed that at around 4 p.m. she answered a telephone call from a woman who introduced herself as her employer’s wife, saying she had figured in a vehicular accident and needed money to pay off the other party.

She claimed that she did not suspect anything was amiss because the voice sounded like that of her employer’s wife. The woman on the line made her talk to a man, who said he was a policeman at a precinct in Valenzuela City and confirmed the alleged accident.

Becamon alleged that she was instructed to force open a cabinet which held the jewelry and was told to place it in a plastic bag, bind it tightly in packaging tape, and to wrap the package in a towel before taking the valuables to a bank on Congressional Avenue. At the designated place, she said that she handed the package to a man who told her wait for her employer.

After waiting for an hour, the housemaid decided to return home and discovered that she had been duped.

Becamon remains detained at the QCPD-CIDU holding cell pending the filing of a qualified theft charge against her.