Ex-PCGG head arrested in New York

A former chairman of the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) has been arrested in New York by agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for alleged involvement in the sale of fake gold share certificates, Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post reported yesterday.

David Castro, who once headed the body tasked to recover the Marcoses’ alleged ill-gotten wealth, was caught in a sting operation Wednesday along with Edilberto Marcos, a businessman claiming to be the son of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos.

Marcos was arrested after reportedly trying to sell an undercover FBI agent a fake safekeeping receipt for a $20-million share certificate in gold stored in a Swiss bank.

Castro had claimed that as a Philippine government representative, he needed to collect taxes on any transaction involving the gold, which is believed to be worth some $800 million.

He is the director of Metro Grant Holdings, a company set up by Marcos last year in Hong Kong. The company was launched with a lavish $2-million party at the Grand Hyatt Hotel.

The Post reported that Marcos lived the high life in Hong Kong before going to the US.

The man who claimed to be the son of the former Philippine leader is wanted by Hong Kong’s International Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) over an alleged international plot to obtain credit using $148 billion in fake US Federal Reserve notes.

ICAC chief investigator Stephen Sayell said his office was in contact with the US Department of Justice about Marcos’ possible extradition to Hong Kong.

Marcos’ fake receipt was purportedly issued by a Yugoslavia-based bank with branches in California and Hong Kong and called the Ambrite Overseas Bank, a bank the FBI alleged does not exist, at least in those places.

The certificate was supposedly issued by the Lincoln Bank and Trust Company of the British West Indies which, Marcos claimed, was owned by the Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS).

In return for the $20-million receipt, the undercover agent offered $1 million and shares in firm to be put up by the agent’s fictitious client.

"Marcos demanded that he be paid in cash," FBI special agent Ronald Henderson said in the court deposition.

The sting was set up after a New York security firm hired by Marcos in December approached authorities with a complaint.

When personal checks for security services bounced, Marcos allegedly gave the firm a fictitious gold certificate issued by UBS. The US Federal Reserve told the firm the security was fake but Marcos insisted it could be cashed with special codes.

UBS also confirmed the security was fake.

On April 1, the security firm told Marcos it knew someone who wanted money to set up a stockbroking firm in New York – and the FBI trap was laid.

PCGG denies ties with Castro

The PCGG denied denied any ties with Castro and Marcos, saying the two arrested men had "no moral authority" to transact on behalf of the commission.

"As far as the records of the PCGG are concerned, Castro has no authority to represent the agency. He is on his own," PCGG Commissioner Jorge Sarmineto said.

He pointed out that Castro has long been separated from the PCGG.

Sarmiento explained that it has been the policy of teh PCGG to use government-to-government channels and not person-to-person transactions to pursue the ill-gotten wealth.

During his stint as PCGG chief, he commissioned Australian bounty hunter Reiner Jacobi for the recovery of the Marcos gold.

Meanwhile, a businessman who knew Marcos said his friend insisted he was being "used."

Speaking after he was interviewed by the ICAC yesterday, the Marcos associate, who declined to be named, said the businessman had telephoned him from a New York hotel Sunday.

"Ed told me to ignore the papers," the associate said. Marcos had also told him to bide his time and indicated that he, Marcos, was being used, without adding more details.

The associate said he still believed the man was genuinely a Marcos and still counted the businessman as a friend, even through Marcos owed him about $1.3 million.

He had witnessed Marcos associating with Filipinos from the senior echelons of politics and the military, including people who knew the Marcos family.

"If he’s a fake, a lot of people are telling a lie," he said. "Even if I’m wrong, I have the right to say Ed is real in my heart. This is kind of like a Hollywood movie. I don’t know why this happened to me."

The pair met about two years ago when Marcos came into his now-defunct luggage shop in the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Tsim Sha Tsui, buying expensive luggage and using US dollars without haggling. "He said I should just call him Ed. He didn’t mention Marcos."

Sometimes, Marcos sent people to him to borrow cash so the businessman could pay for the large groups of people he took out to dinner. The associate gave luggage to contacts of Marcos on the understanding the businessman would pay him back.

Former employees confirmed Marcos had been in constant communication through conference calls with them from New York months after he left in October last year. He promised he would return with $100 million in investments.

Employees said Marcos is living with a Filipino starlet in New York, on whom he has lavished diamonds, a house in the Philippines and a new Mercedes-Benz.

Marcos is married to a former model, whom he wed in Hong Kong last year. Staff described how he would always travel with a phalanx of bodyguards, mostly Filipino military men.

One of his projects was the proposed Philippine International City and Country Club. It would have been built on the site where the Filipino Club in Hunghom now stands.