Lucifer

Peñaflor is "allegedly" a market investment scam operator with an estimated P100 million to P300 million in funds taken from several investors including young professionals, government employees, overseas Filipinos and, possibly, military men.

Joyce Marie Jao,one of his victims, had claimed that she was swindled out of P4.6 million. In her affidavit, Jao said Peñaflor convinced her to buy stocks of ABS-CBN Corporation, promising guaranteed profits in March 2015. She was told to open an account at Regina Capital, wherein the suspect's company, CAP-M Consultancy Company, was allegedly connected.By August 2015, she was told her profits had already reached P8 million. When Jao tried to get the supposed profits, however, Peñaflor and his group failed to deliver.

Jao was advised to buy stocks through CAP-M, so that within 12 to 15 days, she would sell the stocks with a 50%-profit. She invested P456,000 for 9,500 shares of alleged ABS-CBN stocks at P48 per share. After 12 days, Peñaflor reportedly told her that her stock was traded and earned more than P130,000. She then decided to reinvest her capital and profit with CAP-M. Soon, she became more aggressive and repeatedly reinvested her profits and additional principal with CAP-M ranging from P197,400 to P1.88 million from March 30 to July 28, 2015. Jao also made an additional investment of P2.45 million on July 28 and P2.2 million in August 2015. Based on her calculation, Jao claimed that she earned P8 million including principal but Peñaflor failed to deliver the entire amount.

Jao further learned that CAP-M Consultancy Company is not allowed or authorized to manage funds or securities.

Speaking to ANC's "On The Money," Francis Cruz and Dave Aguila talked about how former Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) employee Jose Cecilio Peñaflor was able to convince them to invest with him. If you search youtube makikita mo ang video ng interview na yun.

Cruz said that Peñaflor, who is his wife's cousin, offered to sell them "primary shares" at lower prices."He called it primary shares. He would tell us that these shares come... At one point there was a certificate that he showed us. He said that these are shares purchased at a discounted price. He would give it to us at a much much lower price than what the market is doing," he said. He added that Peñaflor told them that their money will be invested with the help of a broker, before they can sell it again. "So the process is he would lodge it with a broker, at that time he was claiming Regina Capital, for about 12 to 15 trading days, after which we could sell it already at the secondary market," Cruz said. Although the terms of the investment were "too good to be true", Cruz said Peñaflor was able to convince not only him and his wife, but also other members of their family, because of his reputation. "Jay was very reputable with the PSE, having worked for them for almost 10 years, plus his family. That's where it really got us," he said. Aguila, for his part, said he was the one who approached Peñaflor. "I thought he has an account with whatever broker he has an account in, and then, as I've said, he actually told me to open my own account. I said 'No, I'm just going to invest in your account. Trade it for me, I trust you.'," he said. Cruz said he started doubting Peñaflor after he was able to get his own account with Regina Capital, who the later claims he is trading with. "I was able to open an account with Regina Capital but only because I was able to open it with one of the branch heads. But if you will check my account as far as trade is concerned, there was no trade actually made on what Jay was selling us," he said. He added that at first, they thought that Peñaflor was only pooling funds before investing them, thus the lack of records for each investor. Aguila said he also started to see some problems in how Peñaflor was running his company, CAP-M Consultancy Company. "It was me who suggested to him to polish the system because I saw something that it was non-compliant with SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission)," he said.

Cruz said he invested P120,000 in Petron Corp. and P300,000 in San Miguel Corp. (SMC). The shares were supposedly bought at discounted prices. "Both of these, after 15 trading days – theoretically – kumita na ng 50 percent. So, P180,000 (for Petron) and P450,000 (for SMC)," Cruz said. Cruz then claimed that Peñaflor enticed him and his in-laws to keep rolling their investments and make more money. He invested the supposed P630,000 in ABS-CBN Corp., and expected to come out with P1.2 million. However, the invested amount and the expected returns never came back to Cruz.

Cruz noted that he and his in-laws and the in-law of his in-laws and their close friends invested more. Peñaflor enticed them to buy shares during the initial public offering (IPO) of SBS Philippines Corp. (P375,000) and brokerage firm Philstocks Financial Inc. (P2 million). Overall, Cruz said they were supposed to gain P12.218 million from their investments. But the promise of quick returns never materialized.

Aside from Cruz, his in-laws, and their friends, six students from San Beda College also claimed to have been scammed by Peñaflor to the tune of P6 million. After working for the PSE, Peñaflor took on a part-time job teaching Economics at the school. A report by JP Soriano on GMA's "24 Oras" noted the students were already requesting to withdraw their investment but they never saw their money again. Peñaflor was able to dupe where his own students and those that were taking up Finance.

Luis Limlingan, Regina Capital managing director, denied that CAP-M is connected in any way with Regina. An industry source said Peñaflor tried to sell employee stock option plans of big companies to unwitting stock market investors. In stock market parlance, ESOPs are contracts between a company and its employees to give workers the right to buy a specific number of company shares at a fixed price within a certain period of time.

Peñaflor was arrested but was later released.