Wednesday, September 12, 2007 NBI entraps man for 'stealing' woman's passport
ELEMENTS of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) yesterday arrested a man who allegedly stole a woman’s passport and later coerced her into meeting him at a motel where they would have sex in exchange for his return of her travel document.
Anthony Cañete, 30, married and of Barangay Opao, Mandaue City, first admitted the allegations at the NBI headquarters yesterday afternoon and literally went on his knees to beg the would-be victim, 37-year-old Genara Gabiana into dropping the complaint.
But in a subsequent interview with television reporters, Cañete changed his story and admitted only the theft of the passport.
”I told her to meet me at the hotel so that I could return the document. I didn’t want to meet her just anywhere because she might call the police and have them wait for me somewhere,” he said in Cebuano.
Introduction
In her statement to the NBI, Gabiana narrated how he met Cañete only a day after her nephew, one Rene Recabo, introduced them.
Cañete, she said, was supposedly looking for somebody whom he could sell a high-end mobile phone he’d pawned at a local shop and was now in danger of being forfeited.
She said she paid him P1,600 for the pawnshop receipt. The receipt gave her the right to redeem the pawned item after paying the shop an additional P6,000.
But instead of just giving her the receipt, Cañete allegedly asked for any identifying document that he could use in getting the pawnshop to change the name in the registry from his to Gabiana’s.
“I didn’t have an ID so I gave him my passport instead,” she said in Cebuano.
Text messages
The following morning, she said, she received a message from Cañete via her mobile phone. He wanted to meet with her somewhere in T. Padilla so he could purportedly return his passport.
She said she, a nephew and a niece went to T. Padilla but he was nowhere to be found.
“He sent me a text message telling me that if I want to get my passport back, I’d have to meet him at a motel because he wanted me. I told him I was too old for him but he said age had nothing to do with it,” she said, again in Cebuano.
A taxi driver suggested that she report the matter to the NBI. She followed the advice.
The agents planned the sting and had him send a text message agreeing to the meet. He picked the time and place.
Gabiana entered the room that Cañete had booked. There was small talk followed by agents forcing their way in.
Cañete didn’t resist arrest but lied to the agents by saying the passport was hidden at his house in Mandaue City. All the while it was hidden beneath his undergarment. (KNR)
