Two persons who swindled a prominent Bacolod lawyer and civic leader of about P3 million in jewelry and cash yesterday morning are now being hunted by the Bacolod police, with the help of the National Bureau of Investigation, City Police Director Pedro Merced said.

Merced said they have sought NBI help in coming up with cartographic sketches of the two suspects, so their arrest can be hastened.

He said it appears that lawyer Luz Dato-Lacson, 79, was victimized by the "Budol-Budol" gang. Her description of the swindlers being in their 60s does not, however, fit that of other gang members who have operated in the city before, Merced said.

Dato-Lacson told the DAILY STAR that more than P2 million of jewelry, some of them irreplaceable heirlooms, more than $10,000 and P65,000 in cash, were taken from her.

She said she, her driver, and a helper had gone to the Burgos Market yesterday morning to buy food for a luncheon she was to host at noon when a man, she described to be in his 60s approached her.

The mestizo-looking man introduced himself as a ship captain on vacation and who has a doctor-daughter married to an Australian millionaire interested in investing in the Philippines, she said.

He seemed to know members of my family, she added.

I told him I had many clients who were selling property, one of which was in the Shopping Center area, and worth P700 million, she said.

The man said he was interested but had to see a property plan. "I told him I would have to get that from my house," she said.

STANDARD
OPERATING PROCEDURE

While they were talking, she said another man also in his 60s, approached them and said he needed help to buy pumps for his fishing boats because he did not know where to go and only spoke Tagalog, Dato-Lacson said.

The first man said he could help and would go to a store selling the items, leaving the second man with her, Dato-Lacson said.

The second man was carrying a black shoulder bag that appeared to be filled P1,000 bills, which he told her totaled P1.8 million.

"He told me he did not know how to get a safety deposit box in the bank and asked me to teach him how to do that," she said.

"He asked if I was a lawyer and said that if I would help him with his banking, he would pay me lawyer's fees," she said. "He told me he did not even know what a key of a safety deposit box looked like," she added.

She said she told the man she was going to the bank to get money from her deposit box as she needed P150,000 to pay the people working on repairs in her house.

SAFETY DEPOSIT
BOX EMPTIED

Since she was in a hurry to get home to prepare lunch for her friends, she said she got out all the contents of her safety deposit box at the Philippine National Bank, put them in a shoe bag, and went back to the vehicle where the man was.

She also said she was wearing a two-carat diamond ring at the time and took it off to let the man look at it. Later he returned it to her but she did not put it back on her finger, but placed it with her two bank books and the cash she had with her, in the shoe bag.

The man then said that since she had to go home to attend to her guests, they should instead meet again in the afternoon.

He said he would leave his black bag with P1.8 million with her, and she could put her valuables in it too.

She said she allowed the man to put the shoe bag in his black bag. He then locked it, turned it over to her to keep, and left.

RUDE AWAKENING When the man did not appear at her house at 3 p.m. she decided to open the black bag. To her great shock, she discovered that her jewelry and money from the bank were no longer in it, she said.

What she found in the bag was only crumpled newspaper and two pieces of wood, she said.

Dato-Lacson said she does not know how she ended up with the bag without her jewelry and cash because she was sure she watched the man when he placed them inside it.

HYPNOTIZED?

She said it is possible that he hypnotized her and switched the bag with the valuables with an identical one.

She recalled that the man had also told her that since she had his bag of money, she should leave her 6610-I Nokia cellular phone with him so he could contact her later in the day. She agreed and gave him the cellphone, too.

Not only that, the 5110 cellular phone of her helper, Melissa Valenzuela, was also taken.

She said this happened in the small van of the man that was parked at the Petron gas station at Burgos Street in Bacolod City.

After the discovery, Dato-Lacson went to Police Precinct 4 to report the incident.*CPG

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