‘Sexual predator’ on Facebook falls

Ricardo Pagud Arquero Jr.

Ricardo Pagud Arquero Jr. apparently led two lives: The first as a security guard, the second as a US-educated charmer who could help his predominantly female friends on Facebook find jobs abroad.

The 52-year-old Arquero was arrested and finally unmasked Thursday as an alleged sexual predator who used his social network site to lure his victims and then threatened them with blackmail to keep them silent.

Agents of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) cornered Arquero at a hotel in Cubao, Quezon City, following a complaint from a 30-year-old woman who had accused him of rape, robbery and extortion, illegal recruitment and grave threats.

According to NBI senior investigator Darwin Francisco, Arquero befriended the woman on Facebook in September 2015 and enticed her to work in Alaska instead of Singapore, where she was applying for a job as a domestic helper.

“He told the victim that he could help her get a job as an Internet receptionist in Alaska but she had to pay P50,000 to process the papers,” Francisco said, quoting the woman’s complaint.

When Arquero and the woman finally met in person, he drugged her and forced her to have sex before a video camera, the NBI official said.

The woman, a mother of two, was too ashamed to report the abuse to the police—but her ordeal didn’t stop there. In December, Arquero contacted her to demand that they meet again and she give him more money—or else he would leak their sex video.

At first she agreed, but when the money stopped coming, Arquero made good his threat: The video along with her nude photos ended up on the Facebook page of her husband, children and some relatives.

“When I stopped giving him money because I could no longer afford it, he threatened to kill my children. That’s when I decided to report everything to the NBI,” the victim said in her complaint.

Because of the scandal , the woman’s husband and two children—both minors—have stayed away from her, Francisco said.

In his Facebook page, Arquero described himself as a “Defensive Coordinator at Family Owned Business, Supervisor at Wesleyan Cuisine and Defense Attache at Airport City.” He also claimed to be a resident of Palmer, Alaska, who originally hailed from Vigan, Ilocos Sur. He supposedly underwent “police officer training at Wesley Seminary.”

Other details of Arquero’s background—his real address, employment and family—were still being checked by the NBI at press time. The bureau also got hold of his mobile phone to find out if he had other victims.