The Bureau of Immigration (BI) said its operatives have arrested a South Korean fugitive wanted by authorities in Seoul for swindling and defrauding his two compatriots of large sums of money.
In a report from BI FSU Chief Bobby Raquepo to Immigration Commissioner Jaime Morente, it was disclosed that Lee Beomseok, 42, was arrested on Thursday inside a restaurant in Angeles City, Pampanga by elements from the BI’s fugitive search unit (FSU).
Morente said he issued the mission order for Lee’s arrest at the request of the South Korean authorities in Manila which informed the BI that the alien is the subject of a criminal investigation for fraud in his country.
Lee is also the subject of an Interpol blue notice issued on March last year and he is already an undocumented alien due to the revocation of his passport by the Korean government, the BI chief added.
The Korean is presently detained at the BI detention facility in Bicutan, Taguig pending issuance and implementation of the order for his deportation by the bureau’s board of commissioners.
“He will be placed in the immigration blacklist and banned from re-entering the Philippines,” Morente said.
BI agents nab Korean swindler in Pampanga
BI records revealed that sometime in September 2013, Lee received 25 million won, or equivalent to about US$22,000 from his first victim after persuading him to lend money for his alleged restaurant business.
The following year, Lee again reportedly enticed another victim to lend him a total of almost 280 million won, or roughly US$248,000, which the victim transferred to his bank account in several tranches.
Meanwhile, Philippine National Police (PNP) authorities are looking at “murder for insurance” as a motive in the killing of a Korean national in Valenzuela City.
According to PNP chief Police General Debold Sinas, the investigation on the death of Korean businessman Nam Sunuk “took an interesting twist.”
Suspects Kimberly Radores and Rica Estrella gave extra-judicial confessions, in the presence of lawyers, claimed that the murder was staged and planned by the victim himself.
On February 13, the Korean national was shot and killed in the backseat of his Hyundai Tucson SUV along Padrigal Extension in Maysan, Valenzuela City.