REWARD OFFERED FOR INFO ON MISSING BEAUTY PAGEANT BET, ISRAELI BF NOW P1.4-M

THE reward money offered for any information that would lead to the whereabouts of missing Pampanga Mutya ng Pilipinas candidate and her Israeli boyfriend now reached P1.4 million.

Geneva Lopez, 27, and her boyfriend Yitshak Cohen, 37, mysteriously disappeared last June 21, the day they left their house in Angeles City in Pampanga.

Lopez told her family that they will go to  Tarlac to check a real estate property they were planning to purchase with the help of a broker.

Out of the P1.4 million reward money, P1 million was offered by Pampanga Gov. Dennis Pineda and her mother, Vice Gov. Lila Pineda while Sto. Tomas, Pampanga John Sambo offered a P150,000 bounty.

According to the family of Cohen, they will be giving P250,000 cash to anybody who can give the information that would lead to the recovery of the missing couple.

As of press time, investigators from the PNP Criminal Investigation and Detection Group and the Police Regional Office 3 are looking for all available CCTV footages that would help them find the two.

Lopez and Cohen disappeared just hours after the vehicle they were riding was found to be burning on a highway in Capas, Tarlac.

A second vehicle said to be connected to people who were with the missing couple was also recovered in Tarlac City.

The vehicle found in Tarlac City has been subjected into a thorough examination by the PNP Highway Patrol Group and PNP Forensic Group to determine its registered owner.

Probers are also checking who were the last persons who rode the vehicle.

PNP-CIDG director Maj. Gen. Leo M. Francisco said they are looking at seven “persons of interest” in the case, one of them a former policeman from Angeles City who acted as the “middleman” of the property about to be bought by the couple before they went missing.

The PNP-CIDG chief said that the former cop has already expressed his willingness to cooperate with the ongoing investigation.

In a sworn statement he gave to the Capas City Municipal Police Station, the former cop said he met the couple in front of a gasoline station in Bgy. Cristo Rey around 2 p.m. on June 21.

They later went to Armenia, which is accessible via Cojuangco road, on board their respective vehicles. The ex-cop said he parted ways with the couple after the two inspected two parcels of agricultural land they were planning to buy.

The following day, the missing couple’s Nissan Terra SUV was found burning along the Capas-San Jose Road in Capas municipality.

Although he said they are looking into at least three motives behind the couple’s mysterious disappearance,  Francisco said there are still no indications that the couple have been killed already.

The PRO3 headed by Brig. Gen. Jose S. Hidalgo Jr. formed the Special Investigation Task Group “Geneshak” to conduct a thorough probe into the couple’s disappearance.