Police sergeant, 2 men charged in car insurance scam

The Attorney General’s Office has charged a police sergeant and two men for alleged involvement in a car insurance scam.

The AGO charged Sgt. Hillary Tagabuel, Serafin Amog Esperancilla, and Yu Jai Feng “Lili” Cepeda with conspiracy to commit theft by deception. Esperancilla and Cepeda were also charged with theft by deception.

In yesterday’s arraignment, Tagabuel, Esperancilla, and Cepeda pleaded not guilty.

Tagabuel, who was last assigned at the Department of Public Safety’s commissioner’s office, was not arrested; he was only summoned to appear in court.

Esperancilla was apprehended on May 26, while Cepeda was picked up on May 25. The case was then sealed.

According to information filed by chief prosecutor Kevin Lynch, on or between Oct. 29, 2007 through January 2008 the three conspired to create a false impression to Century Insurance that two cars were involved in a crash when in fact that claim was based on a false police report.

The scheme was done, Lynch said, so that Century Insurance, the insurer of the vehicles, would pay Y.J.C. Automobile Repair Shop, which Cepeda owns.

In a press briefing yesterday, Department of Public Safety Commissioner Claudio K. Norita said that a month ago, the supervisor of a patrol unit noticed several traffic crash reports that had the same officer reporting the “incidents.”

“There was a concern because that officer was not doing any traffic or patrol assignments,” Norita said.

He said the patrol supervisor brought the case to the attention of Traffic investigator Flor Estabillo who, in the process, brought up the matter with police operations commander Capt. Lawrence Camacho.

Norita said that Capt. Camacho informed him about the case so they went over the records and examined some of the data on traffic crash reports.

The commissioner said they immediately discovered 13 traffic crash reports that they felt were an issue.

Norita said he went to the Criminal Investigation Division and directed Estabillo and detective Patrick Maanao to conduct an internal/undercover investigation.

Norita said they were looking at 19 suspicious crash reports but ended up discovering a total of 41 that they believe had issues. He said the signatures of the supervisor were forged.

“Throughout our investigation, we found out that Sgt. Hillary Tagabuel basically initiated these traffic crash reports,” he said.

During the course of the investigation, Maanao said they discovered that Tagabuel forged the traffic crash reports.

“We followed up with this with the insurance companies. We received several claims that had already been paid out by these insurance companies, knowing already that the traffic crash reports were fraudulent,” Maanao said.

The detective said they decided to conduct follow-up investigation on the alleged operators in these alleged crashes.

“We learned that most of the operators were not even aware that they were involved in the traffic crashes,” Maanao said.

Norita said that Tagabuel cooperated with the investigators.

Norita added that there could be some officers who unknowingly issued case numbers to Tagabuel.

“There is a parallel investigation going on right now for Internal Affairs to deal with those personnel,” Norita said.

Maanao said under the scheme, the average payout by the insurance companies were anywhere between $8,000 to $25,000 per traffic crash report.

Maanao said Tagabuel was basically being paid for traffic crash reports and he was getting anywhere between $150 to $200 per report.

Police also searched Cepeda’s auto shop where they seized five vehicles.