Fireman 'extorting' cash from BFP applicants nabbed in Zamboanga del Sur

COTABATO CITY — Police agents arrested a fireman long known for asking money from applicants to the Bureau of Fire Protection during a P400,000 cash payoff by a supposed victim who helped entrap him in Kumalarang, Zamboanga del Sur on Monday.

Officials of the Zamboanga del Sur Provincial Police Office and the Police Regional Office-9, told reporters on Tuesday that FO3 Jesson Albios Casanes voluntarily turned himself in when policemen frisked and cuffed him after receiving the money in a sting on Monday in Purok Crossing in Barangay Sicade in Kumalarang.

The entrapment operation that resulted in Casanes' arrest was laid together by personnel of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group-9 and units under PRO-19 and the Zamboanga del Sur PPO, assisted by officials of  the BFP's regional office in Region 9.

The operation was launched after a number of parents whose sons and daughters were duped by Casanes reported to the police his illegal activities.

Casenas is assigned at the BFP’s station in Isabela City in Basilan, a component-province of the Bangsamoro region.

His companions reportedly helped clamp him down by providing the police with information about his mulcting of money from young men and women who want to join the BFP.

Casenas is now detained, awaiting prosecution, according to officials of PRO-9. The regional office of BFP-9 had said in a statement that an administrative case shall be filed against him for serious infraction of the bureau’s code of conduct for its organic personnel.