Yeah so of it is an old issue kalimtan na diay? hehe taw-anan na read more below
NBI TRACES LACSON’S $1-MILLION DEPOSIT IN US BANK. Opposition Sen. Panfilo Lacson allegedly deposited one million dollars (50 million pesos) in his account with a bank in the United States at the height of the impeachment trial of deposed President Joseph Estrada, a top official of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) disclosed Thursday.
The NBI official said Lacson personally withdrew the one million dollars from the Equitable PCIBank branch in Greenhills, San Juan sometime in October and November 2000. Should Lacson deny that he maintains dollar accounts in the United States, the NBI official said: "Then we will force Equitable PCIBank to produce these bank transactions." Asked about the implications of the disclosure, the official said: "Well, (it could be a ground) for the filing of a plunder case. It’s a million dollars . . . fifty million pesos."
The NBI official made the disclosure after Justice Secretary Hernando Perez refused Thursday to divulge the contents of a report sent by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the US Department of Justice. The FBI report confirms that Lacson maintains three to four bank accounts in the United States. The two-inch thick report consisted of bank transactions, facsimiles of bank records and checks.
Perez said at a press conference that he could not comment on the report pending an examination to be conducted by a panel of investigators from the NBI Legal Division and the Anti-Fraud Division, and experts from private banks. Pressed for details, NBI Director Reynaldo Wycoco, who was present at the press conference, told reporters that the report confirmed the existence of three to four accounts. Without going into details, Wycoco said the three to four accounts were worth more than 700,000 dollars (35 million pesos). He dared Lacson to fulfill his promise to go "directly to jail" if investigators found any account abroad containing a large amount.
Of the accounts, at least one is still active. It is registered under the name of Lacson’s wife Alice. One was worth 246,000 dollars (12.3 million pesos). The other two checks were worth 50,000 dollars (2.5 million pesos) and 5,000 dollars (250,000 pesos), respectively. The NBI chief said the Lacson couple used a conduit bank in Hong Kong – Hong Kong Shanghai Bank – to transact with Bank of America. Asked if the other accounts belonged to Lacson himself, he said: "Maybe. But we have yet to examine the bank records provided by the FBI. Please give us time to evaluate them."
As expected, Lacson dismissed as propaganda from his detractors the reported confirmation of his dollar accounts by the FBI. He said the alleged FBI report on his dollar accounts was "true and not true." It was true that he had three or four accounts in the United States, according to Lacson. But these accounts were no longer active, he said. Lacson questioned why Wycoco did not produce the alleged FBI report but merely released the video footage. "Where is the report?" he asked.
Wycoco said the NBI would submit its findings to the Senate committees on public order and illegal drugs and on national defense, and the blue ribbon committee. Wycoco belied Lacson’s claim that the DOJ’s move to prosecute him for money laundering was a form of political persecution. He said that as early as April 18 last year, the FBI came up with an initial report confirming the existence of two Lacson accounts with Wells Fargo and Bank of America in California.