POLICE have arrested a fellow policeman in Pangasinan for alleged extortion, Philippine National Police (PNP) Integrity Monitoring and Enforcement Group (IMEG) Director Ronald Lee said.
Master Sergeant Aurelio Pine was arrested in an entrapment operation inside the Rain-Plan Hardware and Construction Supply in Balungao, Pangasinan on Thursday morning.
He is now under the custody of the PNP-IMEG pending the filing of criminal and administrative charges against him.
Recovered from Pine’s possession were a PNP-issued Glock 17 semi-automatic pistol and a caliber .45 pistol with an expired license.
Lee said the operation against Pine stemmed from the complaint of hardware owner Ricky Sanchez.
Sanchez said the suspect informed him that his name was included in the Ilocos Police Regional Office’s list of gun-for-hire and drug trafficking suspects being targeted for neutralization.
He said Pine asked him for P100,000 in exchange for the removal of his name from the list.
During the operation, Pine accepted the P100,000 worth of boodle money topped by two marked P1,000 bills from Sanchez.
"It turned out that the suspect was just using the scheme to collect money from unsuspecting civilians in the region. We are now investigating if he had also victimized several other people in the region before he was arrested," Lee said. (Third Anne Peralta-Malonzo/SunStar Philippines)