MANILA – A United States federal grand jury indicted Janet Lim-Napoles and five others for conspiring to funnel in and out of the US some $20 million in Philippine public funds obtained through a multiyear bribery and fraud scheme.
Aside from Janet Lim-Napoles, 54, indicted for conspiracy to commit domestic and international money laundering were Jo Christine Napoles, 34, James Christopher, 33, Jeane Catherine, 28, Reynald Luy Lim, 52, and Ana Marie Lim, 47, the US Department of Justice said in a statement released Tuesday.
Three defendants, working with some 20 Filipino officials, funneled into the Napoles matriarch’s nongovernment organizations money from government funds, including lawmakers’ Priority Development Assistance Fund, also known as “pork barrel,” said the US Justice Department.
Napoles’ NGOs were supposed to use the money for development projects but did not do so and instead diverted the funds to “kickbacks for the legislators and other government officials, and for the personal use of the Napoles family,” said the agency.
Janet Lim-Napoles remains behind bars for her plunder and graft cases before the Sandiganbayan in relation to the pork barrel scam.
The government in February provisionally accepted Napoles as a state witness. She was removed from the Witness Protection Program by the new Justice secretary in May.
Some $20 million of the funds, the US Justice Department said, were diverted to money remitters in the Philippines and then wired to bank accounts in Southern California where the money was used to purchase real estate, shares in two businesses, two Porsche Boxsters, and finance the living expenses of three family members in the US, Jeane Napoles, and the Lims.
An audit discovered the fraud in September 2012. The fraud and the US proceeds were exposed in the Filipino press in July of the following year, the US Justice Department said.
Napoles was arrested in August 2013 and her family’s bank accounts in the Philippines were frozen.
“Napoles and her family then attempted to quietly liquidate the assets in the US, secretly repatriate most of the resulting funds back to the Philippines and to other accounts in the US and United Kingdom, and disburse some of the funds to Jeane Napoles, who used the money to finance her lifestyle and open a fashion business,” the agency said.
“Even after Jannet [sic] Napoles made a highly publicized statement admitting that she had bribed Philippine legislators in connection with these ‘ghost projects,’ the defendants attempted to convert the proceeds of this crime to their own use,” US Attorney Nicola Hanna said in the same statement.
“The efforts of Philippine and American investigators demonstrate that there are consequences to abusing public trust, and we hope to deter such conduct in the future. To do this, we will work with our Philippine counterparts to secure the extradition of the defendants to the United States,” she added.
About approximately $12.5 million in the Napoles’ Southern California real estate has been seized by the US Attorney’s Office and is subject to a pending civil forfeiture case.
If the court orders the assets forfeited, the US will work with Philippine officials in an attempt to return the stolen funds back to the Philippine government, the US Justice Department said.
US authorities, it said, were coordinating with the Philippines’ Department of Justice, Office of the Ombudsman, Anti-Money Laundering Council, and Commission on Audit. (ABS-CBN News)
After this very bad news for the Napoles family, will Maam Jen allow herself and members of her family to be crucified alone and not include those who taught her the formula of massive corruption and those who received millions of money thru her fake NGO’s? Will Maam Jen exonerate PNoy and all the yellows and non yellows she helped steal public money? Will Jinggoy Estrada not complain when he is the first to suffer? How about Bong Revilla?