THE Justice department said Thursday it will find out where the P20 million from the P50 million allegedly extorted by two Immigration officials from gaming tycoon Jack Lam had gone.
Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II said he had tasked the Bureau of Immigration to find out where the rest of the money went from Deputy Commissioners Al Argosino and Michael Robles and former police chief superintendent Wally Sombero, Lam’s alleged middleman.
Argosino and Robles on Tuesday surrendered only P30 million, an amount that was even short by P1,000.
“We don’t know where the rest of the money is. The NBI will find out,” Aguirre said in in a text message.
He made his statement even as Immigration employees on Thursday said Argosino and Robles were no longer welcome to the bureau.
An employees’ group said the two officials tainted the image of the bureau, which only recently received an ISO certification saying it had met international standards in terms of public service.
Argosino and Robles earlier claimed that Sombero took P2 million as his commission while P18 million went to Immigration’s intelligence division chief Charles Calima Jr., who has been ordered dismissed by Aguirre along with technical assistant for intelligence Edward Chan.
Aguirre has already recommended that Argosino and Robles be dismissed.
The two have insinuated that Calima took P18 million supposedly to be given to Immigration Commissioner Jaime Morente and newspaper columnist Ramon Tulfo, who exposed the extortion issue on December 10.
They said they gave Calima P18 million on December 9 after the latter told them that he knew what happened in the City of Dreams and that Sombero had ‘‘urreptitiously, secretly and maliciously’’ recorded his conversation with Argosino and Robles.
Sombero, Calima and Tulfo have all denied the allegations.