CELEBRITY couple Maricel Laxa and Anthony Pangilinan appear on Wednesday at a Camp Crame briefing conducted by Senior Supt. Guillermo Lorenzo Eleazar (right) regarding the arrest of identity theft suspect Myca Acobo Aranda. PHOTO BY GRIG C. MONTEGRANDE
She faked not just one but multiple Facebook identities, making them “talk” to one another, in a four-year money-making racket that used a celebrity couple and their children.
Such was the well-scripted scheme allegedly pulled off by a 19-year-old college student from Quezon City, who pretended online as actress Maricel Laxa-Pangilinan and her children to solicit money from their relatives and friends.
At a press briefing on Wednesday in Camp Crame, the Philippine National Police-Anti-Cybercrime Group (PNP-ACG) announced the arrest of Myca Acobo Aranda, an information technology student residing in Barangay Bagbag, Novaliches.
Aranda was caught in an entrapment operation on Tuesday when she received the P4,848 she had solicited online while posing as Laxa’s son.
Laxa is the wife of motivational speaker and management trainer Anthony Pangilinan.
The PNP-ACG chief, Senior Supt. Guillermo Lorenzo Eleazar, said Aranda created Facebook accounts to put up a charade as Laxa and her four children. “[She made it] appear that they were the ones using those accounts and eventually asked favors from [the Pangilinans’] friends and relatives.”
The Pangilinan couple, who joined the media briefing, said Aranda had apparently been doing it for the last four years.
Anthony Pangilinan noted that, as part of Aranda’s “strategy,” she made the fake accounts “converse” with each other. “So if you’re family or friend, you would think it’s real that mother and children were talking with each other.”
“She did many things—asking for ‘pasa (cell phone) load,’ for donations—(while) developing friendships and relationships. One person even approached us claiming he was the online boyfriend of one of our daughters,” he said.
“We tried warning people, had the accounts reported. But it’s gotten worse the past few months, when money got involved. Not a few of our friends and family were fooled into giving money for different reasons,” Pangilinan said. “Sometimes it’s supposedly for the tuition of our children, sometimes it’s for additional gifts or for an outreach in Benguet where we supposedly needed support.”
The family is checking the total amount solicited by Aranda through the years and if she acted alone.
Pangilinan said his family earlier tried to confront the impostor also via Facebook but was blocked on the fake accounts.
And because of Aranda’s actions that were attributed to the Pangilinans, “a lot of people got mad at us,” he said. “Our kids got into quarrels and lost friends.”
The IT student was arrested when she agreed to accept cash through a money transfer service in her barangay. The trap was set after a godmother of one of the Pangilinan children called Laxa on Monday, complaining that her “godchild” was asking for additional money for graduation.
When the Pangilinan couple finally confronted Aranda, she said she did it because she “idolized” the family.
“So she really immersed herself in our family. And then she started to need money. So she tried it (identity theft) and when she got support from people, she just continued with it,” Laxa said. “We actually pity her. She became another person.”
The actress encouraged other victims of identity theft to alert the PNP-ACG. Eleazar said they could call his team’s hotline, 4141560.
Aranda faces charges for identity theft, swindling and child exploitation, the police official said.