THE top executives of the Legacy Group yesterday testified against its owner, Celso de los Angeles, saying he used fraud to cheat investors in his banking, pre-need and investment activities.

De los Angeles ?personally designed? the group?s ?double-your-money? and other investment schemes ?to defraud investors including myself and plan holders out of our hard-earned money and savings,? Myrna Axalan, who served as first vice president for marketing of Legacy Consolidated Plans Inc., told the Senate committee on trade and industry.

Philip Piccio, president of the Parents-Enabling Parents Coalition, said De los Angeles withdrew P20 million from the trust funds of Legacy?s plan holders in LandBank and Asia Trust Bank last year, and that belied his claim that he gave up managing the group when he was elected mayor of Sto. Domingo in Albay in 2007.

He said P48 million of the group?s funds had been transferred to De los Angeles? personal accounts with Banco de Oro as of yesterday.

On Thursday, the Securities and Exchange Commission has charged the Legacy Group with violations of the Securities Code. The same day, the central bank filed a P1-billion estafa case against De los Angeles and other officials of the group, accusing them of swindling the public through fictitious loans.

Paul Stephen Montenegro, president and chairman of Rural Bank of Bais in Negros Occidental, said the Legacy Group?s top officials ordered them to issue ?certificates of time deposits? to pre-need plan holders and other investors in a double-your-money scheme, but the money did not go to the bank.

Other officials of banks and pre-need firms under the same group made the same statement. Fel V. Maragay