Bank scam not as big as imagined by public

A supposed bank scam earlier feared to trigger a bank run has turned to be nothing but an isolated case involving an assistant bank manager and two depositors. For days on end, the Tagbilaran community was trapped in suspended animation after it was aired over the air lanes that the extent of a bank anomaly whose amount involved was in the vicinity of P30 million. It turned out that the whole story was an exaggeration.

Caught in the tempest of a bank irregularity was the local branch of the Bank of Commerce but the damage was not as extensive as imagined when the story broke out on the air. The isolated bank mess was also the object of a banner story of the midweek edition of a local paper. When the story appeared to be beyond suppression, the management of the bank came out with a one page statement denying altogether the “unfounded rumors circulated against its good name.”

The bank statement zeroed in on at least three angles of the story: that the bank is not involved in a “multi-million scam”; that the bank is not in receipt of complaints from several victims and that the bank was not the subject of any probe by the National Bureau of Investigation. Speaking as legal counsel of the bank, lawyer Theodore Cabajug debunked insinuations that the Bank of Commerce was subjected to an NBI investigation. He also denied news reports that the investigators were denied access to any bank documents in relation to the alleged scam. This was confirmed by the local office of the NBI that no investigation was in the offing. In a check with lawyer Max Salvador, NBI-Bohol head, he said that while the district office was preparing to conduct a probe what happened, cases were already filed against the lone suspect.

THE SUSPECT

Indeed, the bank in question did admit in the press statement that a month ago, the bank received a letter from a client requesting for assistance in tracing an alleged irregular movement in her account. The branch then immediately conducted an investigation in accordance with the client's request. It turned out that the client referred to was Mae Anne Ramasola, a resident of CPG avenue , this city. Assisted by lawyer Lord Marapao IV, the complaints were for estafa with abuse of confidence and deceit and falsification of private document by a private individual.

Named as respondent in the cases filed last Tuesday before the Office of the City Prosecutor was Ada Marie Gallego-Mascariñas alias Happy, a resident of Dao district, this city. She used to be the assistant manager of Bank of Commerce until she resigned last month. According to the complaint affidavit of Ramasola, last February 2006, she was convinced by the respondent to transfer the former's Value One Time Deposit to another product of BOC saying it would yield higher interest. After having convinced the depositor to transfer the entire amount of her deposit to the new product, Mascariñas then handed Ramasola a bank withdrawal slip.

Then the respondent asked the complainant to sign the said withdrawal slip and gave the assurance that she (Mascariñas) would complete the rest of the form for and in the latter's behalf. It turned out that that the amount she indicated on the withdrawal was P2,015,781.88 as evidenced by a validated form. Mascariñas' excuse was that the withdrawal slip would be used to close Ramasola's existing account and subsequently transfer to the latter's deposit to the other product of BOC. As to the depositor's passbook, she was told by Mascariñas to keep it since it will be used for the new account. She kept the same, confident that she could always have it updated later.

On March 2006, the respondent went to the complainant's residence and advised the latter to sign another withdrawal slip accordingly to facilitate the transfer of her deposit to another better-yielding account which BOC has offered. Since the complainant has already earned the full trust and confidence of the respondent, she signed a blank withdrawal slip and relied on the latter to fill up the rest of the details in the form more particularly on the amount allegedly to be withdrawn. It was sometime in July that the complainant thought of getting the passbook updated. She thus contacted Mascariñas who surprisingly offered to personally get the passbook from the bank employee. Weeks had passed and complainant noticed that it had already taken a while and her passbook has not yet been returned to her.

It was on August 8 that the respondent finally returned the passbook and to her surprise what complainant found in her passbook was different from what she has previously given the respondent. Wasting no time, Ramasola checked the balance as reflected in the passbook and showed that she had P2,114672.13 in her account. At first, she felt relieved that it was about the same amount, which she had expected. Her relief proved short-lived. After noticing that the figures were typewritten, the complainant started to get suspicious so she decided to visit the bank. There, she found questionable entries in her account. Among them were withdrawals of P2,015781.88 but with check deposits which complainant was unaware of and several credit/debit memos on the same day. What was worse was that the actual amount of complainant's deposit came up to only P1,096,561.64 or short of P1,018,110.50 from the balance reflected in the passbook given by respondent.

ANOTHER VICTIM

Another victim of Mascariñas' caper was a certain Bebot Manigque, said to be a cousin of the suspect. According to lawyer Alberto Bautista, his client Manigque was made to open an account with the BOC. Although she made no cash deposits to the account, his client was surprised to find deposit entries in the millions of pesos. It turned out that the Manigque account was only used as “parking area” for Mascariñas operations. Although the bank was not defrauded of anything, Bautista as of last week was contemplating to file a case of estafa and violations of the Anti-Money Laundering Law. The lawyer said he was trying to establish if Mascariñas was liable of using the Manigque account as her own “laundry machine” as she went about her nefarious business.

MONEY CHANGERS

At the height of the bank scam story, there were reports that at least three Bombay money changers who have dollar accounts in the bank were also victimized. This gave rise to speculations that the erring bank official was engaged in kiting operations, a scheme being resorted to pay off an existing obligation by using another source of funds. When another obligation is up for settlement, another money source is being tapped to pay off the same and so on and so forth. The bank, however, denied that there was such a thing as a kiting scheme perpetrated by its former employee. Neither was there anything like three Bombay money changers whose accounts were used as part of an elaborate bank scam.

The question that comes to mind as a result of the so-called bank mess was that, where is Mascariñas now? According to reports reaching, the Post she is still here and is leaving in the house of her mother-in-law Rustica Mascariñas, provincial officer of the Department of Interior and Local Government. The suspect is the daughter of a former bank employee identified as Cesar Gallego who was reported to have left the country in haste together with his wife last August 17. It was not known what was his role in his daughter's operations.

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