CEBU CITY -- The central office of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) is building a legal case against the founder of the Kapa Community Ministry International, Inc. and the manager of its Cebu office for operating an investment firm without authority from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Lawyer Tomas Enrile, NBI 7 (Central Visayas) director, said even though no one was arrested when the NBI agents and the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) 7 raided Kapa’s Compostela branch office on Monday, the NBI will investigate its founder, Pastor Joel Apolinario, and Cebu branch manager Christopher Abad.
In an interview with the Philippine News Agency (PNA) on Tuesday, Enrile said the region’s NBI agents were ordered by the central office to serve the search warrant issued by Manila Regional Trial Court Branch 20 Judge Marivic Umali.
“Kami dito sa NBI-7, nag-serve lang kami ng warrant (We in NBI-7 just served the warrant). It’s NBI-Manila that will initiate the case build-up against the founder,” he said.
Enrile said no official or staff member of Kapa in Compostela faced the raiding team.
However, a radio report said that a cook of the building showed up but did not give details on the whereabouts of manager Abad and the other employees.
The regional NBI director, however, clarified that the raid was not conducted because of a complaint about the investment firm’s transactions with the public.
“The violation subject of the court process was not pertaining to scam because no complainant ever showed up. But the organization violated certain provisions of the Securities Regulation Code of the Philippines,” Enrile said.
Kapa has reportedly violated Sections 8 and 26 of Republic Act 8799 or the Securities and Regulations Code of the Philippines.
During the raid, authorities confiscated several unfilled and duly filled-up forms, a big vault believed to contain several millions of pesos worth of “investments from their members,” office effects, and motorcycles used by their collectors.
The SEC is determined to press charges against Apolinario and directors of Kapa because the alleged investment scam reportedly defrauded its members of as much as PHP50 billion.
Following reports that it has been operating an investment business similar to the Ponzi scheme without authority from SEC, President Rodrigo Duterte ordered authorities to shut down Kapa.
Meanwhile, Police Regional Office 7 director, Brig. Gen. Debold Sinas, said the robbery that occurred last Saturday in Kapa’s Compostela branch was an inside job.
Before the robbers escaped with a small vault containing PHP5 million to PHP7 million, they reportedly set the office on fire.
Sinas also said he placed three police officers in the region under investigation and ordered them to turn over their service firearms after they were reported to have invested with Kapa, despite his directive to all police personnel not to join this investment scam. (PNA)
