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General’s sons arrested for cash smuggling in the US

by Michaela P. del Callar

02/27/2009

Acting on an indictment by a federal grand jury in San Francisco, American authorities arrested Wednesday two sons of retired Maj. Gen. Carlos Garcia, the former comptroller of the Armed Forces of the Philippines who allegedly amassed illegal wealth in kickbacks from suppliers of military equipment, for “bulk cash smuggling,” according to the United States Department of Justice.

The indictment issued last December charged Juan Paulo Depakakibo Garcia, of Pontiac, Michigan, and Ian Carl Depakakibo Garcia of Las Vegas, Nevada with one count of conspiracy to commit bulk cash smuggling and with one count of bulk cash smuggling.

The two are the sons of retired Maj. Gen. Carlos Garcia, whom the Sandiganbayan recently found guilty of perjury for misdeclaring his assets and liabilities in 2000.

The elder Garcia, his wife and three sons are also facing plunder charges her for allegedly amassing P303.27 million of ill-gotten wealth.

The grand jury also charged Juan Paulo with one count of failing to file a report on the import of monetary instruments and one count of making a false statement to a government agency. He was arrested in Pontiac while Ian Carl was arrested in Las Vegas.

Both will be held in San Francisco to answer to the charges.

According to the indictment in December 2008, the Garcia brothers smuggled $100,000 into the US from Manila, concealed on their persons and in their luggage, and failed to declare the importation of this money.

The maximum statutory penalty for each of the four counts in the indictment - conspiracy to commit bulk cash smuggling, bulk cash smuggling, failure to report the importation of monetary instruments and false statements to a government agency - are 5 years in prison, and a $250,000 fine.

The penalty for failure to declare the importation of monetary instruments increases to 10 years in prison if a defendant is convicted of this charge, in addition to one of the other three charges in the indictment.

Any sentence following conviction would be imposed by the court after consideration of the US Sentencing Guidelines and the federal statute governing the imposition of a sentence.

An indictment contains only allegations against an individual and, as with all defendants, the Garcias are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

The prosecution is the result of an investigation by the United States Customs and Border Protection, the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation and Department of Defense, Defense Criminal Investigative Service.