CEBU CITY – The camp of two Cebu-based business process outsourcing (BPO) executives has appealed to the government to help bring them home after they were arrested in the United States (US) for their alleged involvement in a multi-million dollar fraud.

Lawyer Oliver Baclay maintained that Mike Sordilla and Bryan Tarosa, the Chief Executive Officer and Vice President of Innocentrix, respectively, are innocent of the charges hurled against him.

Sordilla and Tarosa are facing charges of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud, as well as money laundering. The two were arrested by agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in a restaurant last December.

“We know that they have a lot of work but we earnestly appeal to the DFA (Department of Foreign Affairs) to help us,” Baclay, spokesperson for Sordilla and Tarosa, said in a recent press conference here.

Sordilla and Tarosa were implicated in an alleged $44-milion US book publishing scam. The scheme allegedly targeted elderly authors, convincing them to pay for services under the false pretense of publication or film adaptation.

Baclay insisted that the company operates legitimately and the actual value of the transaction in question is just worth over $2 million.

“There's no basis. We conducted our own investigation and it turns out that the transaction value involved is just a little over $2 million. Of the $2 million, $1.6 million are completed or what they call fulfilled,” said Baclay.

A refund of $160,000 dollars was also made by the company.

“If you are saying that this certain entity is a scamming operation or is a scam entity, then I haven't heard of a scam entity who does refund. I handled a lot of scam cases, scam complaints. Most of the time, once money is given, you would no longer hear or you can no longer contact the scam entity. But this time, in our case, there are clear customer service hotlines,” said Baclay.

Baclay emphasized that Innocentrix is not involved in fraudulent activities and denied allegations that the company targeted elderly authors.

He added that Innocentrix has actively worked to address customer complaints, referencing the company’s customer service hotlines and bank records showing refunds issued.

Baclay added that complaints that 800 authors were involved were inaccurate.

He said only nine authors were involved in the actual transactions, which totaled just over $2 million.

Innocentrix had requested additional information but it had not received any supporting details, Baclay said.

Baclay expressed confidence that the evidence would eventually clear Sordilla and Tarosa.

The trial of the case has been moved to August.

“Before this press briefing, we talked to them and they cried a lot. Each day that they are in detention is very difficult for them,” Baclay said.