By Joel M. Sy Egco

The ?Beverly Hills, California? resident who claimed got mugged on his first visit to the country is now behind bars after police said he was nothing but a scam artist.

Supt. Franklin Moises Mabanag, chief of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Unit, said that perjury and other charges would be slapped against Richard Sangalang, 24, a.k.a. Nathan Santos Smith, for having inveigled the police official into giving him P2,500 transportation money because of his sob story.

?We checked all his claims. We spent money to dig his record at the immigration bureau, Peninsula Manila and the address he gave in Baguio City. None of those were true. So I sent him to jail,? a furious Mabanag told Standard Today.

?When he came back, he acted strange. He just sat there and stared at nothing for three hours. I guess he is deranged. I might refer him to the mental hospital.?

Inside the detention cell, the English-speaking Sangalang, cracked and turned out to be a native Filipino speaker.

?Ako po si Richard Sangalang taga-Capas, Tarlac po [I?m Richard Sangalang from Capas, Tarlac, sir],? he told this reporter.

He admitted having spun a yarn about the robbery and that he was merely looking for a job in Metro Manila.

Mabanag could well have made out Harvard among Annapolis, Cambridge or Oxford in Cubao, where Sangalang claimed he was brought to by Penequito Gallardo, the taxi driver whom he had tagged as the one who robbed him Sunday dawn.

Sangalang introduced himself as a Harvard law student, residing in Beverly Hills, California.

?But when I asked him where Harvard is, he could not give a definite answer. Also, the address in Baguio turned out to be a Born-Again Christian church while the room in Peninsula where he claimed he and his aunt were billeted, was likewise fictitious.?

In his earlier statement, Sangalang said he boarded Gallardo?s cab at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport, asking to be brought to a Pasay City bus terminal for a Baguio-bound ride.

Instead, he said, Gallardo drove to Ali Mall, where an accomplice boarded the cab and purportedly helped in robbing him.

Mabanag said the driver has been released from police custody but not without the usual grilling and much ado about nothing.

?I also gave him some money to make up for his lost income when we invited him for questioning,? he said.