US seeks to seize assets of woman in Philippines scam

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Philippine businesswoman Janet Napoles, wearing a bullet-proof vest, takes an oath …

The US Justice Department moved Tuesday to seize $12.5 million in assets of

Janet Napoles, a businesswoman at the center of a broad Philippines

corruption scandal dubbed the "pork barrel scam".

The department filed a civil forfeiture complaint to gain control of assets

including a swank Los Angeles condominium, a motel near Disneyland, and a

Porsche Boxster that Napoles bought for a daughter allegedly with money

intended for development and disaster relief.

The complaint filed in the Los Angeles Federal District Court said Napoles

paid tens of millions of dollars in bribes to Philippine politicians and officials

from 2004-2012 to get $200 million in funds which were supposed to help

poor Filipinos.

The organizations Napoles ran did not deliver the services, and she took the

money for her own personal use, the department said.

"The Justice Department will not allow the United States to become a

playground for the corrupt or a place to hide and invest stolen riches," said

Assistant Attorney General Leslie Caldwell in a statement.

The Department said Napoles moved $12 million to US accounts in the

names of, or controlled by, her family, and used it to buy a condominium in

the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, the motel, and other properties.

Napoles, already in jail in the Philippines for kidnapping her cousin in 2014,

has been charged along with family members in the corruption case.

Last year she gave prosecutors a list of names implicating more than 100

people in the scandal, which resulted in the arrest of Senator Juan Ponce

Enrile, one of the Philippines's most powerful politicians; Senator Jose

Estrada, son of a former president; and Senator Ramon Revilla, an action film

star, among others.