This is a hornet’s nest, as the circumstances surrounding his arrest may be disputed.
“After being on the run for two years, property developer Delfin Lee was arrested on Thursday evening, Mar 6, for syndicated estafa over PHP7 billion worth of housing loans granted to non-existent borrowers,” reports Francisco Tuyay in Manila Standard Today.
The report said that Lee, who is behind the condominium project Global Asiatique and the subject of a warrant of arrest since May 2012, was nabbed around 6:45pm outside the Hyatt Regency Hotel and Casino Manila by a police task force of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group.
The report went on to explain: “The Court of Appeals actually dismissed the case against Lee in November last year and ordered authorities to stop the arrest of the property developer because ‘for estafa to have been committed by a syndicate, the act must be committed by five or more persons.'”
But then Department of Justice Secretary Leila de Lima insisted that the arrest order was not lifted and was not yet final and executory.
Screengrab from a news clip
