Teenager turns from victim to con artist, robbery suspect

MANILA, Philippines - Police arrested yesterday a teenager who admitted to selling a cell phone, then switching it for one of inferior quality just before the buyer receives the item – a modus operandi he said he learned from a con artist who duped him.

Superintendent Marcelino Pedrozo Jr., commander of the Quezon City Police District-Station 3, said once the buyer agrees to pay for the cell phone, Rommel Michael Rivera, 18, “would use his quick hands to bring out a fake phone model that looks exactly like the one he had earlier offered to sell. Unknown to the victim, he has received the fake phone which costs less and has inferior quality even if he had paid for the price of the original model.”

Rivera said he used this modus operandi to dupe at least 15 people.

“I was also sold a fake phone in the past. I had been dupe with the same modus and that’s when I also started doing it,” he told The STAR.

Pedrozo said when Rivera fails to convince a buyer, he and a cohort would allegedly just snatch the buyer’s belongings and run. Rivera, who faces robbery charges along with Joey Francisco, 25, denied the allegation.

Pedrozo said Rivera and Francisco were arrested by QCPD-Station 3 police officers Wednesday night on Tandang Sora Avenue following a complaint by Judy Baquiran and Jeff Randy Ramos, who said the suspects fled on a motorcycle after snatching their cell phones. The victims’ cell phones were later recovered from the suspects. – Reinir Padua