Estafa filed vs woman for “online swindling”

CEBU, Philippines — The Cebu City Prosecutor’s Office has charged a woman before the court for allegedly misappropriating the money of an investor of Race2Earn and Online Shop.

Flora Se Nino Allego, a resident of San Roque, Cebu City, allegedly handed over P445,000 to Clarisse Nicole Lyn Albaladejo, a resident of Metro Manila, after the latter, with false pretenses and misrepresentation, induced her to invest.

Allego alleged that while browsing Facebook, she ran into the post of Albaladejo that she was accepting investors of Race2Earn and Online Shop which is legitimate and duly registered with the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) with the assurance that the money invested will be doubled within 10 days.

She said she was convinced and invested her money within the promise of increasing her investment within a short period of time.

“After several investments which were delivered as promised, the last considerable investment was not delivered despite notice and demand,” the complaint read, adding Albaladejo misapplied and converted to her own personal use and benefit the sum of P355,000 to her damage and prejudice.

Prosecutor III Rogelio Del Prado, Jr. directed Albaladejo to file her counter-affidavit but failed. Thus, he resolved the complaint based on the evidence at hand.

Del Prado, in his November 28, 2017 resolution, dismissed the complaint filed against Albaladejo for lack of probable cause.

“Astute evaluation of the evidence submitted by the private complainants (showed) the existence of malice as an element for the crime of estafa is not present or established, there is no probable cause to support the same,” read the resolution, adding there was no clear and evident showing the deceit was employed to commit estafa.

Aggrieved, Allego filed a motion for reconsideration (MR), seeking for the reversal of the earlier resolution which del Prado had granted.

“In their motion for reconsideration, the complainant did enough to convince the undersigned prosecutor to believe that (respondent) is probably the persons that the former intends to prove in court as the very same person who swindled them; this Office would give complainant that chance to prove to on court. As it was the respondent Albaladejo who operated the Facebook account as well as the named person to whom the money was deposited from,” read the resolution on the MR. — GAN (FREEMAN)