Authorities freeze assets of convicted drug personality

By Jigger J. Jerusalem
Correspondent

GOVERNMENT agencies have now started to implement a court-issued freeze order on the properties of a convicted drug personality.

The Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) and the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) have teamed up to put the properties of Rico Bacon, located in Cagayan de Oro, Misamis Oriental, and Metro Manila, on hold.

Bacon, who was arrested with his wife and brother-in-law inside his house in Barangay Bulua, this city, following the serving of a search warrant in 2017, was convicted of illegal possession of drugs, firearm, ammunition, and explosives two years later.

Bacon’s residence in Bulua, where he was arrested, was also on PDEA’s and AMLC’s list of properties subject to a freeze order by the court.

A team of PDEA agents and AMLC officials posted notices on the gates of Bacon’s house informing the public that it is now under a freeze order earlier this month.

Wilkins Villanueva, PDEA director-general, said they found out from AMLC that the Bacon spouses are owners of at least 19 real estate properties, including houses in Cagayan de Oro and Misamis Oriental, and a condominium unit in Metro Manila.

Bacon, Villanueva said, is a high-level member of the Ozamiz City-based Kuratong Baleleng group, reported having been engaged in drug dealing and other criminal activities.

Some of Kuratong Baleleng’s top leaders had already been killed in police operations, including Reynaldo Parojinog Sr., who was then the mayor of Ozamiz, in 2017.

It was found out, he said, that the house in Bulua used to serve as a drop-off point of proceeds from the group’s drug trade.

Although Bacon is already behind bars and serving time in jail, Villanueva said what they are after are his and Kuratong Baleleng’s financial assets and properties.

“The properties have to be put on freeze so they can’t be sold, the same with the money so it can’t be used in the drug trade,” Villanueva said.

From their investigation, PDEA and AMLC have discovered that Bacon, who also owned a construction company, has declared a monthly income of only 15,000.

Arturo Baculi Jr., the AMLC financial investigator, said that what Bacon has declared as his earnings and the value of the properties he owned did not match.

Based on what AMLC has found out, Bacon has bank transactions and property ownership in hundreds of million pesos, Baculi said.

“It did not commensurate. You cannot have a house this big with a P15,000 monthly income,” he said.

After implementing the freeze order, Baculi said the AMLC will file a civil forfeiture case as the basis for the issuance of a preservation order that will give the government the authority to take hold of the property so Bacon cannot dispose of it.