Soldiers fell to controversial car and money market scheme too

COTABATO CITY --- Unsuspecting Army and police personnel lost no less than P40 million to a pyramid rent-a-car and money market business that went awry just as experts had warned early on.The victims are among more than 600 people, some of them private individuals and senior officials of government agencies in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao and in Administrative Region 12, now building criminal cases against the culprits.Anwar Emblawa, designated spokesman of a group of victims, said Monday they will ask Lt. Gen. Carlito Galvez, Jr, chief of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, to compel soldiers who had received vehicles from the Lahdins Marketing in exchange for their cash investments to relinquish the units as soon as possible to the police’s Highway Patrol Group.More than a hundred policemen and soldiers who fell to the scheme, as second group, had each entrusted to the rent-a-car and money market broker, the Lahdins Marketing here, P300,000 to P350,000 with a promise of 20 to 30 percent monthly interest as profit.They received cars from the Lahdins Marketing, coming from the first group, or investors who were made to believe that they are to get P30,000 to P40,000 in monthly rentals for their units.Those in the first group were told that their cars were leased to non-government organizations, private companies and big transnational firms operating in different parts of Mindanao.Chief Superintendent Graciano Mijares of the Police Regional Office-ARMM and Major Gen. Cirilito Sobejana of the Army’s 6thInfantry Division separately said Monday that they have directed their victim-subordinates to cooperate with investigators. They also have to surrender the vehicles from Lahdins Marketing to the HPG, Mijares said.Sobejana said those in the first group of investors should help the HPG locate the cars that they turned over to the Lahdins Marketing. There must be meeting of the minds here now. It seems all are losers, those who entrusted vehicles expecting rentals and those who invested money expecting very high, `too good to be true’ profit markup, Mijares said.Mijares said 11 vehicles recovered initially by the HPG-ARMM are now kept in Camp S.K. Pendatun in Parang town in Maguindanao.The camp is the regional command center of the ARMM police. It is the HPG that will guard the vehicles while inside our camp. That was the arrangement between HPG and my office, Mijares said.He said PRO-ARMM will help the HPG locate the vehicles that the Lahdins Marketing had secured from trusting investors that were released to those in the second group of capitalists who invested in its cash market ventures.