U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents have discovered four banks accounts in California under the name of Philippine Senator Panfilo Lacson, belying the official's claim that he does not have more than one such financial record in the United States, the Philippine Daily Inquirer reported yesterday, citing "confidential letters" from the FBI.

The report said the FBI probed into the Lacson accounts on the request of its Philippine counterpart the National Bureau of Investigation. "The FBI found four active accounts held by (Lacson's) wife Alice and one account that Lacson closed in 1996," it said.

The report came amid a furore over the recently elected Senator's alleged offshore accounts containing an estimated $720 million, which was revealed by military intelligence chief Col. Victor Corpus.

The huge bank deposits, Corpus, said, came from criminal operations by Lacson and a group of police officers close to him. The Senator was formerly the chief of the Philippine National Police until this January, when then president Joseph Estrada's government was toppled in an uprising.

The confidential letters, according to the report, also confirmed that the Lacsons sold a house in California and that Alice Lacson has two checking accounts with small balances and two savings accounts, both with a "large balance".

One of the accounts was in the name of Ms Lacson and "Orient Light, LLC", a company earlier reported to be one of two that the senator's wife set up in Beverly Hills in the greater Los Angeles area, the letters said.

The official correspondence, dated April 18 and April 30, does not appear to confirm any of the eight accounts listed by Corpus as belonging to Lacson and containing laundered drug money.

But a six-man joint military and police team sent by the Philippine government to investigate Lacsons' alleged multi-million-dollar accounts in California claims to possess documents from the U.S. Customs Service which contain reports that could incriminate Lacson.

Senior Supt. Rodolfo Mendoza, one of the six members of the team, said the FBI investigation was "not conclusive because it was not as exhaustive as the probe made and still being undertaken by the U.S. Customs Service". Mendoza said the U.S. Customs Service and the FBI differed in the findings of their separate investigations of Lacson's alleged accounts.

The U.S. Customs Service is investigating alleged Lacson accounts to determine possible violations of the U.S. anti-money laundering law while the FBI is conducting a separate probe for domestic security concerns.

In a privilege speech before the Senate last week, Lacson admitted that he had an account in Bank of America but closed it several years ago. Property records of the Lacsons obtained by the FBI showed that the couple purchased a property located at Chula Vista, California on January 18, 1996 for $170,000.

"This property was sold by Panfilo M. and Alice P. Lacson on April 10, 1999, for $185,000," it said. NBI Director Reynaldo Wycoco, who has custody of the "confidential letters" said he asked for the evidence as early as March this year based on a complaint lodged by the Chinese Embassy in Manila against Lacson.

Lacson, a protege of Estrada, has been accused by a former government agent, Mary Ong, of abducting businessmen from Hong Kong and holding them for ransom before killing them. The proceeds from the criminal operations are believed to have been stashed by the former police chief in the U.S.

Wycoco said that as early as April, U.S. authorities had already confirmed the existence of the accounts, prompting the NBI to pursue its investigation.

The Inquirer report quoted Corpus as saying that government witnesses have executed sworn statements in a bid to help U.S. authorities secure an indictment against Lacson in the United States. "Our witnesses have executed their affidavits in the U.S. because we have no money-laundering law here," Corpus said.