Alleged Northern Luzon's casino scam leaders indicted for estafa

BAGUIO CITY — Alleged casino junket financing scam chief Hector Pantollana, brother Hubert including leaders of perhaps the latest multi-billion investment scandal in Northern Luzon, have been indicted of syndicated estafa by the Baguio City prosecutor’s office.

This was disclosed by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) in Cordillera Administrative Region in a press statement released this week.

The agency, which has been probing the case since September 2022, found out that the Pantollana brothers, Virgilio Casupanan, brothers Hazen and Hein Humilde, Jerry Caupingco, Mikaella Damasco Ty-Choi, Mark Stephen Alzona, Charina Jane Abaeo, Rosemarie Humilde, Marwin Humilde, Edwin Humilde, Gracelyn Ipac, Keith Cassandra Humilde, Erica Dayrit, and Lyca Dayrit were all identified with “Team Z”, which not only ran an unauthorized or unlicensed casino junket operation but a non-existent junket business, as well.

Team Z’s modus operandi, according to the NBI - Cordillera Administrative Region, is to induce would-be investors to shell out money in their business “with a promise of a 5 percent monthly income from their investment which will be locked-in for a one  year period.”

The Pantollana brothers and their leaders allegedly gave a tour to the investors and free rooms to those who have invested at least Php1,000,000 to entice them, the NBI added. 

However, the 300 complainants who had gathered at the NBI-CAR to report the scam claimed that the Pantollanas and leaders of Team Z did not permit them to enter any casino junket room. Instead, they merely pointed to the rooms and asserted that they were their junket operations, according to the NBI-CAR.

When pay-outs by Team Z leaders were delayed, investors began pouring into the NBI-CAR during the third quarter of last year to file formal complaints, which were later recommended to the Baguio Prosecutor’s Office. 

No one has been caught yet after Warrants of Arrests for syndicated estafa without bail were issued against the suspects on 24 April 2024.

Ty-Choi and Abaeo, through their counsel Atty. Francis Camtugan, however, have contested their indictment. “We will exhaust remedies to protect the rights and interests (of Ty-Choi and Abaeo),” the lawyer said, believing his clients should not face syndicated estafa, instead estafa only; and also wondering why some other supposed leaders of Team Z were not indicted.

The Securities and Exchange Commission earlier issued a permanent Cease-and-Desist-Order (CDO) against the Pantollanas and more than three dozen personalities tagged in the Team Z casino junket operations.

The NBI-CAR discovered that the Pantollanas and Team Z leaders ran away with over P4.5 billion in investments from at least 10,000 investors from Baguio City, other Cordillera provinces, Region 1, and even abroad