BI men at NAIA intercept 6 trafficking victims

Bureau of Immigration (BI) officers at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) stopped from leaving six suspected human trafficking victims bound for the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

A report to Immigration Commissioner Jaime Morente by the BI Intelligence Division said the six passengers, all women, were intercepted at the immigration departure area of NAIA’s Terminal 3 on Wednesday by the BI Travel Control and Enforcement Unit (TCEU) for attempting to board an Emirates flight to Dubai.

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Manahan said all six passengers were prevented from boarding their flight after it was found that the UAE visas pasted on their passports are counterfeit.

“During primary inspection, they claimed that they were balik-manggagawa, or overseas Filipino workers merely returning to their old employers. They alleged to have been directly hired as domestic household workers, but they were unable to show any proof of such claim,” the report stated.

The documents were also submitted to the BI’s forensic document laboratory, which later confirmed that the presented visas were spurious.

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BI men at NAIA intercept 6 trafficking victims

The 6 were later turned over to the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking (IACAT) for further investigation and filing of charges against their recruiters.

The incident prompted Morente to again warn members of human trafficking syndicates that “the BI will not allow them to take advantage of the pandemic to prey on our poor countrymen who are lured to become victims of their racket because of poverty.”

He said BI officers at the NAIA and other airports are adept in detecting falsified documents, thus any attempt by syndicates to spirit them out of the country using such schemes will not succeed.

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Last month,  officers at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) uncovered another scheme employed by human trafficking syndicates to facilitate the illegal departure of their victims from the country.

In a report to Immigration Commissioner Jaime Morente, BI Travel Control and Enforcement Unit (TCEU) officers said the scheme was discovered after a female overseas Filipino worker (OFW) was intercepted at the NAIA Terminal 3 last Sunday for attempting to board a Qatar Airways flight to Saudi Arabia.

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