The Makati City Regional Trial Court has ordered the arrest of a son of the late business tycoon Washington Sycip and several officers and members of tuna canning firm, Alliance International Inc., after the Department of Justice indicted them for estafa.
In seven separate warrants of arrest, Judge Honorio Guanlao Jr. of Makati City RTC Branch 57, directed law enforcers to arrest Alliance chairman of the board George Sycip and board of directors Jonathan Dee, Alvin Dee, Joanna Dee-Laurel, Teresita Ladanga, Grace Dogillo and Arak Ratborihan.
The court set the bail at P120,000 for each of the accused for their temporary liberty during the trial of the case.
The warrants of arrest were issued after the lower court denied the motion to quash the warrant of arrest and to dismiss the case for lack of merit filed by the accused.
Earlier, the DOJ found probable cause against Sycip and other Alliance officers for estafa under Article 315 2(a) of the Revised Penal Code.
Alliance’s foreign shareholders, Harvest All Investment Limited, Victory Fund Limited, and Bondeast Private Limited and Hedy S.C. Yap Chua, filed the case against the respondents for allegedly using their investments in the company to engage in illegal activities and transactions.
The victims claimed they were enticed to invest their money—amounting to more than P75 million, more than $65,000 and another P4 million—in January 2009, saying Jonathan Dee made it appear, among others, that Alliance was a financially rewarding company.
Alliance was created for the purpose of manufacturing, canning, sale, importing and exporting of tuna and salmon.
The complainants, however, described the management of Alliance as a “wire and shut out scheme” because the money infused in the company as corporate funds were siphoned and misappropriated by the mismanagement for the benefit of the Dee companies.