BAGUIO CITY – The city prosecutor’s office inhibited from investing the numerous estafa and syndicated estafa cases filed by hundreds of individuals against the owners and proprietors of the controversial Satarah Wellness Marketing to avoid any suspicion of bias and partiality in the resolution of the pending cases.
City Prosecutor Elmer Manuel Sagsago transmitted to the Regional State Prosecutor Nonatus Caesar Rojas the records of the pending estafa and syndicated estafa cases against the alleged Ponzi firm after the inhibition of the prosecutors handling the cases for alleged conflicts of interest.
In a motion for inhibition filed by the counsel of Weng Pan Henrich Lau and other officers of the Satarah Wellness Marketing, it was alleged that there are some staff of the city prosecutors and lawyers who have invested in the company which would allegedly affect whatever decisions to be rendered by the said office in the pending cases.
It can be recalled that hundreds of complainants have filed various estafa and syndicated estafa cases against the owners and officers of Satarah after they allegedly divested from them millions of pesos of their hard earned money when they promised them that they will be guaranteed high interest rates return for their investments.
Satarah recently issued an advisory to its creditors acknowledging receipt of the list of those with investments but the management claimed that it was able to uncover that some of the figures are allegedly bloated, thus, the need for their accountants and staff to evaluate and assess such claims and that the supposed scheduled pay out last June 28, 2016 was not actually true.
The company assured its creditors that it is doing something to settle its obligations with them but there is a need for sometime for the company to ascertain the actual amounts to be paid to them in due time.
Considering that the city prosecutor’s office decide to inhibit from investigating the cases filed against Satarah Wellness Marketing, it will now be the Regional State Prosecutor’s Office that will be burdened in hearing the numerous cases filed against the owners and officers of the company if the parties will not again file another motion for inhibition against the Regional State Prosecutor.
Last year, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ruled that Satarah Wellness Marketing was not allowed to solicit investments and securities from the public considering that it was not granted a secondary license for such purpose but it was issued a permit for the retail of health and wellness products.
The company was found sometime in 2013 but it eventually closed its operations late last year after it was hounded by controversies when it was not able to return the investments of hundreds of individuals who were promised high interests in return for their investments that were placed in the company.
Some of the officers of the company were recently arrested and detained at the Baguio City jail following the various estafa and syndicated estafa cases filed against them before the various courts in Baguio and Benguet after the firm failed to return the hard earned investments of their creditors over the past several months.
By HENT
