The United States’ Department of Justice announced yesterday that it has charged Janet Napoles with laundering as much as US$20 million (more than PHP1.59 billion) of the Philippines’ Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) into the U.S.
According to a press release posted on the department’s official website, it is also indicting other members of Napoles’ family: her children Jo Christine, James Christopher, and Jean Catherine; and her brother Reynald Luy Lim and his wife Ana Marie.
The department said that Napoles, along with her kin, diverted the Philippines’ public funds into bank accounts in Southern California and used it to purchase “real estate, shares in two businesses, two Porsche Boxsters,” and finance the lifestyles of the members of their family in the US.
According to the statement, about US$12.5 million-worth (more than PHP662,270,000) of Southern California real estate belonging to the Napoleses have already been seized by the US Attorney’s Office.
According to The Philippine Daily Inquirer, the country’s Justice secretary Menardo Guevarra said that it will cooperate with the United States government.
The PDAF is a fund given to members of the country’s House of Representatives. Initiated in 1990, the fund is supposed to be used to fund small-scale infrastructure projects and social services, but have been the subject of numerous cases of alleged corruption.
This includes the 2013 case where lawmakers’ funds were allegedly funneled to the projects of 82 dodgy non-government organizations, 10 of which were linked to Janet.
These NGOs used the funds without an approproating law or ordinance. All of the NGOs also did not undergo public bidding.
The Napoles family’s ties to lawmakers were discovered after Janet’s cousin and former employee Bernhur Luy accused her and Lim of detaining Luy from December 2012 to March 2013.
Janet and Lim allegedly did this to stop Luy from divulging that the Napoleses were involved in siphoning money off the PDAF and into their NGOs, reported ABS-CBN.
In 2017, Janet was acquitted in her illegal detention case involving Luy. No less than Solicitor General called for her acquittal, a decision supported by President Rodrigo Duterte.
Among Janet’s family members, her daughter Jean gained the most notoriety thanks to her social media posts where she was seen showcasing her expensive lifestyle in the United States.
These included photos of her posing with a Porsche Cayenne and a video of her lavish 21st birthday at the posh Beverly Hills Hotel. The posts, which appeared five years ago, led to an investigation by the Bureau of Internal Revenue.
In an interview with ABS-CBN in 2013, Janet confirmed the authenticity of the social media postings but insisted that their money came from legitimate businesses and not from the PDAF.
