SENATORS looking into the casino operator Jack Lam-Bureau of Immigration (BI) P50-million bribery scandal traced the money trail to Lam’s casino partners, giving impetus to senators’ initiative to amend the Anti-Money Laundering Act (Amla) and include casinos on the law’s list of covered institutions.
Sen. Francis G. Escudero suggested its inclusion in Amla after grilling key personalities linked to the case involving former Immigration Bureau officials Al Argosino and Michael Robles, who were reported to have “extorted” P50 million from Lam to release hundreds of
Chinese dealers nabbed in Pampanga and Cagayan free-port casinos for working without permits.
Under questioning by the investigating committee chairman, Sen. Richard J. Gordon, Lam’s associate Alex Yu admitted Lam asked him to get the money from Lam’s casino partners to secure the release of Chinese casino workers arrested during the raid, led by the two immigration commissioners, who claimed they took the casino money as part of an entrapment operation.
Yu told senators that following Lam’s instructions, “we borrowed the money from Lam’s [casino] business partners” and brought it to the parking lot of the house of Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. President Alfredo Lim to consolidate the money before it was delivered to the two BI officers purportedly to bail out the Chinese workers.
Testifying under oath, former policeman Wenceslao Sombero confirmed to Senate investigators that Argosino allegedly first demanded P100 million to free the 1,800 Chinese workers in Lam’s casinos of which only 800 have working visas. Sombero said he told the BI officer he will convey this to Jack Lam, admitting to Senate probers that he was “shocked” at the amount initially demanded by Argosino purportedly for “goodwill”.
Sombero added that Lam wanted to help the arrested Chinese casino workers but did not want to advance the money and instead called his associates and business partners who agreed to put up P50-million fund for “bail money”.
But Sombero insisted under questioning by Gordon that he was not involved in getting the bribe money from Lam’s casino operators.
“But I was instructed by Alex Yu to get two people [identified only as Martin and Garfield] to pick up the money from the City of Dreams Casino,” Sombero testified, after which the money was taken from three casino partners of Lam and delivered to the two mmigration officials.
Image credits: Bullit Marquez/AP