‘PO gang may have started in US’

The alleged syndicate at the Makati City Post Office operating a credit card scam may have even started in the United States, according to Philpost General Manager Diomedio Villanueva. In a phone interview, Villanueva added that the alleged syndicate had already been investigated by Philpost last year.

"Natibag na raw yung sindikato. But my primary (objective) now is to find out the extent of the possible participation of the managers and postal employees (in the syndicate)," Villanueva said.

He said "non-postal personnel" in the US could have been in cahoots with some post office employees here.

Villanueva said he is still over the results of last year’s investigation. He declined to reveal them. "I don’t want to make any premature judgment," he said.

Villanueva said the credit card scams such as the one exposed by STAR publisher Max V. Soliven in his column last Monday are well-planned and could go deep. He also described it as a "big-time" operation. Soliven recounted how his businessmen-friends lost thousands of dollars from their overseas bank accounts allegedly to the syndicate at the said post office. – Nikko Dizon