Reported by the Bohol ChronicleNo less than P2 million went to a lady illegal recruiter who victimized some 18 care-giver students who were expecting to land jobs in Canada.
The suspect identified as Marissa Flores Thiess, 31, was no longer in her hotel after the victims were promised to leave last Thursday for their personal appearance and interview at the Canadian Embassy in Manila.
Ms. Theiss enrolled at CanCare Tagbilaran last week of January. She was introduced to her classmates at CanCare as the wife of a certain David Thiess who operates a home for the aged in Canada.
After befriending most of her classmates, she started to convince them to file their applications with her with the assurance for an express lane at the Canadian Embassy during their interview. She name dropped the wife of the consul as her friend who assured the fast lane processing of applicants from Bohol.
Ms. Thiess likewise assured her applicants that she will not collect processing fees and their plane tickets will be on a "fly-now-pay-later" scheme.
With these assurances, she was able to convince some 18 applicants including three faculty members of the car-giver school.
Ten of the 18 victims formally filed their complaints at the city police when they learned that Ms Thiess already checked out from El Portal together with her 2-year old son and a house help. The hotel personnel brought Thiess to the City Airport as verified by the victims.
The victims who reported to the police the incident were Teresita Abcede who gave P205,000; Anthony Macadang, P115,000; baby Erlinda Mindoro, P203,000, Grace Payot, P226,000; Cielito Payot, P76,000; Melanie Boaquin, P205,000; Janice Abrio, P50,000; Joseph Abcede, Emmanuel Abcede P3,500 and Jojo Cuyacot, P42,000.
Ms. Abcede narrated to the Chronicle that Ms. Thiess asked them for a show money of P200,000. However, whatever amount they can raise, she will provide the balance, which made the "invitation" more tempting to them. Some of them deposited half of the amount required for their show money. Ms. Thiess required them to open ATM card at Equitable or PNB, claiming she is a big depositor in both banks.
When they opened accounts with their respective ATM cards at Equitable Bank, Ms Thiess facilitated the transfer of their deposited amount to a savings account showing them bank books wherein she proved that she complied with her commitment to add if their deposited amount would not reach to P200,000.
At this stage of seeing their bankbooks deposited with the counterpart of Ms Thiess, they gained full trust and confidence on her.
The group was promised to take the afternoon flight of Cebu Pacific last Thursday for Manila since their interview at the Embassy was scheduled the following day. Having agreed that they will meet at the CanCare office, the Canada-bound applicants were there. However, to their surprise Ms. Thiess did not show up which alarmed them.
They immediately checked her whereabouts and later in the day learned that Ms. Thiess checked out from the hotel the day before.
Ms. Abcede reported the incident to the police. She expressed disgust on the negative attitude of the local office of the Naitonal Bureau of Investigation (NBI) who simply told them "nothing the NBI can do as the suspect already left."
Meanwhile, Betty Quino, chair and administrator of CanCare Tagbilaran denied any involvement in the operation of Ms. Thiess saying that she was just one of the enrollees who started to report last January. She was not likewise being informed of the arrangements done by the enrollees with Ms. Thiess, otherwise she could have stopped the negotiations.
However, Ms. Abcede recalled that Thiess was introduced to their class by Florence Trigo, of CanCare on the first day that she reported to their class in the last week of January.
PUZZLING MODUS
Bank authorities were surprised how the suspect was able to withdraw their deposits at the ATM accounts when they did not inform Ms Thiess of their pin numbers.
Secondly, the modus has baffled bank authorities on how the suspect was able to produce the bank books of Equitable Bank showing their deposits under a savings account when they were not even asked to sign any application to affix their signatures that they were opening a savings account.
These concerns will be the subject of investigation by bank authorities.
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