Eminiano A. Reodica, Jr.

, better known as Jun Reodica who was popular among the wellheeled Filipino Americans and visiting Filipino stars and politicians in the late 1980s in Los
Angeles, California, had been enjoying his retirement in Cairns, Queensland, Australia for
many years.
Last November, he decided to attend a wedding in Canada as a sponsor. He made a
stopover at Los Angeles International Airport in California, a place that he had avoided in
the last 19 years.
Jun Reodica did not know that a non-US passport holder arriving at any port of entry in
the United States has to undergo fingerprinting and retina and photographic capturing.
At the Los Angeles airport, he presented his Australian passport in the name of Roberto
Cosculluela. US federal agents, noting his fingerprints made hits, immediately arrested
Rodica.
He did not resist. He meekly cooperated, an assistant United States attorney
prosecuting the case told this reporter. His fingerprints matched with those on his
pending warrant of arrest. Reodica, about 68 years old and a native of Laguna,
Philippines, is facing 51 counts for bank fraud and false statements on loan applications
before the US District Court of Central California in Los Angeles.
If he is convicted, he would serve a maximum of five years in jail for each count and
would likely be meted a maximum jail term of 255 years.
Reodica, who was reported to have been the host of the late Cardinal Sin in Los Angeles,
was accompanied by his second wife, identified as Leticia Coscolluela, and their
stepdaughter, who was not identified, when they checked in at the Los Angeles airport at
2 p.m. on Nov. 28, 2012.
Filipino community activist Bobby Reyes of Los Angeles said he had been asking local
media organizations to write about the activities of Jun Reodica, but they held on to the
story until after he left Los Angeles in 1988.
Reodica is due to appear on March 12, 2013 at 9 a.m. before US District Judge S. James
Otero of the Central District of California in Los Angeles. He will be tried and his
associate, Danilo L. Castro, on their long-pending indictment returned in October 1993 by
a grand jury that charged them with defrauding the banks and savings and loan
associations, with filing false statement in application for credit, and with causing an act
to be done and aiding and abetting.
Court records showed Reodica was the owner, principal shareholder, president and chief
operating officer of the Grand Wilshire Group (GWG) of Companies, which was engaged in
the retail sale and financing of vehicles. Its operations included two car dealerships and
three finance companies based in Glendora, California.
Danilo L. Castro was the inventory manager of GWG which operated in 25 locations in
California. It offered customers opportunities to finance the purchase of vehicles through
loans secured from GWG under Motor Vehicle Contract and Security Agreement
(MVCSA).
MVCSA required customers to make monthly loan payments of principal and interest to
GWG for five years. GWH held the registration certificates of the vehicles until the
customers completely paid off the loan.

When a customer failed to make the required payments, GWG repossessed the vehicle.
To finance its operations, GWG, through its finance companies, obtained lines of credit
from financial institutions, including Union Bank, First Los Angeles Bank, Dai-Ichi Kangyo
Bank of California, Manilabank California, First Central and Philadelphia National Bank and
Imperial Savings Association.
In August 1988, Reodica directed GWG employees to prepare monthly Preliminary
Delinquency Report showing payments made by GWG customers and identifying
delinquent customers. But Reodica told his employees to conceal the actual delinquency
rate by using GWG funds to front the payments owed by GWG customers with
delinquent contracts.
The funds used to make fronted payments represented the cash down payments of
customers buying vehicles from Grand Chevrolet Inc., one of GWGs dealerships.
The cash payments were deposited in the bank accounts of the lenders and used to buy
money orders. It issued checks in amounts owed by delinquent customers and
misrepresented to lenders as checks from customers.
Between March 1984 and Aug. 1988, Reodica caused GWG to front payments on 4,000
delinquent motor vehicle contracts that were pledged to lenders as collaterals for GWG
credits.
Reodica also made false statements to federally insured financial institutions, such as
Imperial Savings, to influence actions on a credit line, with the use of monthly Aging
Reports that concealed the delinquent payments by GWG customers.
Reodica likewise altered some 400 TRW reports containing negative credit information
submitted to Imperial Savings so that the customers could buy cars and use funds from
Imperial Savings.
When customers were delinquents in their payments, Reodica repossessed the vehicles,
but did not report the delinquency to the lender. He resold these vehicles without
disclosing the resale to the lenders holding the motor vehicle contracts.
He would assign a new motor vehicle contract for the resold vehicle to a lender as a
collateral without disclosing the existence of the first motor vehicle contract covering the
same vehicle.
Even though there were no longer any payments owed under the first motor vehicle
contracts as a result of the repossession, Reodica directed GWG employees to use GWG
funds to make monthly payments under these contracts so as not to alert the lenders
about the fraudulent scheme.
This is called double-pledged collateral. Some 390 vehicles were double-pledged.

The indictment also accused Reodica and De Castro of instituting a stock purchase and
investment program at GWG known as the Employee Loan Investment Program (ELIP).
Through this scheme, they asked their employees to apply under false statements for at
least $10,000 loan to purchase a car in exchange of a GWG stock certificate of an
amount equal to the loan.

GWG was supposed to pay for the loan taken from Union Bank, DKB, First Central Bank
and Imperial Savings. But the loan went to the operating capital of GWG, not for the
purchase of the car.
The cars were never given to employees, and these remained in the GWGs inventory.
It was reported that at one time, the GWG employees numbered 600.
According to Asian Journal, when GWG declared for bankruptcy, it racked up as much as
$200 million in debt, with $43 million owed to individual investors. Tens of millions of
dollars remain unaccounted for.