Seventh Day Adventists caught up in $5 million fake currency swoop

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$5-Million Fake US Currency Seized in Bacolod City – photograph by SunStar.com.ph – www.plnmedia.com

About $5 million worth of fake US bills have been confiscated from two suspects in an entrapment scheme at Giasano Grand Mall.

Arrested were Erwin Sicano and Frelie Toldano both residents of Murcia, Negros Occidental.

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The men were charged before the City Prosecutor’s Office on Tuesday and are now being held by police.

The entrapment scheme was carried out by the Investigation and Detection Management Unit, along with local officers.

The two suspects were arrested after they accepted 19,000 pesos in marked money in exchange for $5 million fake American money.

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Confiscated were two bundles of fake $10,000 bills, one fake $100,000 bill, and the 19,000 pesos in marked money.

Seized from Toledano were the remaining three bundles of fake $10,000 bills totalling $1 million dollars – the other five bundles totalled $5 million.

Police said they set up the scheme after receiving information about the circulation of fake dollar and peso bills in and around Negros Occidental.

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The men were selling the fake $10,000 dollar bills for 500 pesos each.

The two men were accompanied by several members of the Seventh Day Adventist Church after they told them they had dug up the dollar bills in Murcia and could sell them in Bacolod.

The members of the Seventh Day Adventist Church were not arrested in the raid after arguing that they had been deceived by the suspects.

The two men arrested refused to talk to reporters but admitted to police that they had a supplier of the fake money in the cities of San Carlos and Dumaguete City.

The bills were tested and confirmed fake by Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.

Police say they will conduct a follow-up operation to try and identify the supplier of the fake currency.

 

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