Senatorial candidate Ben Tulfo has revealed a widespread fraudulent scheme used by agricultural traders to exploit farmers during harvest season.
In an interview with CLTV36, Tulfo cited numerous complaints of fraud perpetrated by some deceptive traders.
This followed numerous complaints from farmers who approached him and narrated their experiences of fraud by bogus agri-traders.
“Our local governments in the agricultural regions should watch out for the welfare of farmers. Municipal agricultural officers should do their jobs and the barangays in the said areas should cooperate,” Tulfo said.
“We should really monitor the farmers this harvest season. These traders who visit the agricultural region are very clever. We should watch out for the modus operandi they use to take advantage of the farmers,” he added.
He said unscrupulous traders first buy the entire produce of the farmers.
“Second, they are shown new P500 bills worth half a million pesos from the bank. Third, they are promised that within a week, the remaining P1.5 million, two checks of P750,000, can be encashed,” he said.
He said the traders provide bogus identity information and the guarantor they use are also their accomplice.
He said farmers also complained that the checks issued by the bogus traders bounced.