State prosecutors of Danao City, Cebu, found probable cause to charge Legacy officials -- led by its owner, Celso De Los Angeles Jr. -- with syndicated estafa committed by Rural Bank of Carmen, the group’s unit in the province.
Apart from De Los Angeles, the ten other officers charged include Alexis Petralba, Namnama Pasetes-Santos, Roy Hilario, Virgilio Odejar, Ronaldo Alix, Christine Cruz-Limpin, Mike Basangan, Fernando Rafanan Jr., Cecil Invencion and Reynaldo Manit. According to a BSP lawyer, six of these 11 Legacy officials -- Petralba, Odejar, Pasetes-Santos, Hilario, Cruz-Limpin and Rafanan -- have already evaded arrests are now in hiding.
If you're unfamiliar with this case, Legacy is a group of rural banks all over the country which allegedly engaged in fraudulent activities specifically by offering “double your money” schemes that did not live up to their promise. These "strategies," which involved five- and six-year of time deposits with the “false promise” that the invested funds would earn 20 percent per year, managed to collect as much as 435 million pesos from the Rural Bank of Carmen alone.
