2 policemen nabbed, now in jail for extortion

CAMP OLIVAS, Pampanga—Two policemen were arrested on Tuesday for allegedly framing up a foreigner in Angeles City and extorting P1 million from him, a report to the police’s Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) here showed.

In the report, Chief Insp. Eugene Rebadomia, head of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Team in Pampanga province, said PO3 Menachem Baking and PO2 Ricardo Cabrera Jr. have been charged with robbery in band and violation of the Comprehensive Firearms Law and election gun ban.

Rebadomia said Baking, 32, and Cabrera, 36, are also facing complaints for “extortion activities, gunrunning, illegal drugs peddling (recycling of seized illegal drugs) and [sale of] seized motor vehicles.”

Both are assigned to the intelligence branch of the Angeles City police.

They were arrested in an entrapment operation on Tuesday in the house of Goran Smedjer, a 64-year-old Swede who complained that the policemen demanded P1 million from him. A police report on Tuesday night wrongly said the victim was a Korean businessman.

Smedjer told investigators that two women, whom he met online and through social media, went to his apartment on Jan. 25. As they were bathing, he said five men barged into his house and introduced themselves as policemen.

Smedjer said the men forced him inside a van that drove to Hensonville Subdivision. Inside the van, a woman introduced herself as the mother of one of the women and demanded P220,000 in exchange for Smedjer’s liberty.

Smedjer claimed that before he was released, he was ordered to pay P280,000 on Jan. 26.

Baking and Cabrera were arrested next day when they showed up at Smedjer’s apartment. Five guns were recovered from them, police said.

Senior Supt. Ismael Fernandez, director of the CIDG in Central Luzon region, said the suspects initially demanded P1 million from Smedjer. Tonette Orejas, Inquirer Central Luzon