Huffington Post, international press, fall for hoax Jeane Napoles bathtub pic

MANILA, Philippines - When they ran out of floor space in the bedroom, she said, “we would place it in the bathtub.” Remember that statement made by government witness Gertrudes Luy? She recalled to the Senate Blue Ribbon committee in a recent hearing how employees of JLN Corp., the firm owned by alleged pork barrel queen Janet Lim-Napoles, how they would stash huge sums of money in their boss’s residence at a posh Bonifacio Global City residential tower.

The elder Luy, mother of chief whistleblower Benhur Luy, earlier also gave affidavits to the National Bureau of Investigation team looking into the P10-billion pork barrel scam.

While an earlier video posted by Napoles' daughter Jeane showing off her luxurious surroundings and possessions had already enraged social media weeks before her mother surrendered and was charged, the statement given at the Senate hearing about "bathtubs filled with cash" alone was enough to make people’s imagination run wild.

Apparently, even veterans in the news business were so obsessed with the imagery that even two international websites uploaded a photo of a woman bathing in money. The woman was identified as the controversial young socialite Jeane Lim-Napoles.

U.S.-based online news aggregator Huffington Post, and Australia-based
news website news.com.au ran the story about the young Napoles, but the girl in the photo was not Jeane at all.

The whereabouts of the young woman remain unclear, even though a luxury apartment in LA in her name was placed on the market over a week ago. Last week, the Bureau of Internal Revenue weighed in and filed a case accusing her of evading taxes.

source: interaksyon.com

Fil-Am group moves to block sale of Napoles' US properties

MANILA, Philippines -- The Washington-based Migrant Heritage Commission said it will move to block the sale of assets owned by Jeane Napoles, the daughter of Janet Lim-Napoles, in the United States.

In an e-mail to PNA Wednesday, lawyer Arnedo Valera, MHC co-director, said Filipino-American leaders would vehemently block the sale of the luxury condominium unit at the high-rise Ritz Carlton in Los Angeles, which reportedly owned by the younger Napoles, who is studying in America.



Valera said there are suspicions the condominium was acquired with ill-gotten money, as he noted that Jeane is a full-time student with no known source of income of her own.

Valera said it was Balitang America that first reported the sale of the Los Angeles condominium.

American realty websites list the 1,500 square-foot condo, which has two bedrooms and two bathrooms, with a selling price of US$ 1.475 million.

It was purchased for US$ 1.28 million in 2011.

Valera said FilAms should work together to unmask all US properties of Napoles that may have been bought with Filipino taxpayers’ money.

He also called for the "total abolition" of the pork barrel because "it is the breeding ground for corruption and plunder."

Valera said the Napoles family is believed to own at least three other real estate properties in Southern California.

These include the Anaheim Express Inn valued at about $7 million, a $1.4-million home in the affluent Canyon View gated community in Irvine, and a commercial property in the City of Covina.

source: interaksyon.com