Convicted American felon Timothy J. Desmond attempted to take over the biggest tourism facility located inside the Subic Bay Freeport Zone on 8 April 2026.

Desmond tried to use officers of the Philippine National Police Integrity Monitoring and Enforcement Group (PNP-IMEG) as escorts during his attempt to take over Camayan Beach Resort.

Desmond, who has served time in various detention facilities in the country for convictions involving falsification of documents and perjury, headed a convoy of two PNP-IMEG vehicles with armed personnel, several private vehicles, and a pickup truck carrying masked individuals to the gates of Camayan Beach Resort yesterday.

Desmond’s group, through individuals falsely representing themselves as officers of SBMEI, demanded entry to take over the facility with their police escorts.

Two days earlier, Roiben Baun, styling himself as chairman, Eva Ragadio as president and CEO, and Alayson Macapagal as corporate secretary, sent a letter each claiming those corporate positions and directing SBMEI managers to take instructions only from one of them acting as members of the board.

But Desmond’s group had no court order, no writ of any kind, and had not even coordinated with the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA).

SBMEI President and CEO Robert Ianne Gonzaga dismissed Desmond’s claim to any authority over the corporation.

“Desmond directly owns only 1% of SBMEI. The block of stockholders he claims to represent, through a Florida company called JV China, Inc., is locked in active litigation in the United States against him. And even that company is now only a minority stockholder of SBMEI after its shares were sold at a delinquency auction for failure to pay PHP 32.5 million in unpaid subscriptions. He has no right to exert any authority over this company. That is exactly why the Board of Directors banned him and his cohorts from all SBMEI properties,” Gonzaga said.

Despite Desmond not having any legal basis to act, IMEG Captain Isabel Cabotage led the police contingent into the Freeport Zone in convoy formation with Desmond’s private vehicles. She told SBMEI security that her purpose was to inspect reports that PNP personnel were on duty at Camayan.

That stated purpose, however, does not explain the presence of Desmond’s proxies, private vehicles, and masked individuals that comprised the group they were escorting.

Gonzaga condemned the incident as a calculated attempt to use the state’s own police force to execute an illegal corporate seizure.

During the encounter at the gate, one of Desmond’s associates, identified as Roiben T. Baun, pointed aggressively at Brando Agao, SBMEI’s head of security, and said: “Magkikita pa tayo.”

Eva Ragadio, one of Desmond’s proxies, also confronted an SBMEI employee at the gate, approaching the employee’s vehicle and attempting to pressure the individual to come out.

Gonzaga questioned how Desmond could be operating freely in the Philippines at all.

“We know that he is currently facing a Bureau of Immigration deportation complaint filed by one of our stockholders. He has a derogatory record and has pending complaints against him in the Philippines and the United States. And now this attempt at illegal seizure of the company without a court order. So we have to ask: how can this foreigner be issued a visa by the Bureau of Immigration? If a Filipino ever did something like this in the United States, if we were convicted and jailed for crimes of moral turpitude, we would not be issued a visa. But here, this American walks free and uses our own police as his personal security detail,” he said.

Gonzaga said the incident also raised serious concerns about PNP operations inside the Freeport Zone.

“It appears that the SBMA was completely bypassed. PNP-IMEG entered the Freeport Zone without any coordination with SBMA law enforcement. This could have resulted in violence. There were masked individuals in that convoy. Our guests and employees were at risk. The fact that police officers escorting a convicted foreigner did not even bother to coordinate with the governing authority of this zone is a violation that must be investigated by the NAPOLCOM. We have already informed Chairman Alinio of the danger that Desmond poses to the peace and order within the Subic Bay Freeport Zone,” he said.

SBMEI has already reported the incident with the SBMA Law Enforcement Department and PNP Morong, and is preparing criminal complaints against Desmond, Ragadio, Baun, and Macapagal.