The Bureau of Immigration (BI) said its officers at the international airport in Pampanga have arrested South Korean fugitive wanted by authorities in Seoul for involvement in telecommunications fraud.
In a report to Immigration Commissioner Norman Tansingco, the BI’s border control and intelligence unit (BCIU) identified the passenger 35-year-old Lee Seunggon, who was intercepted at the Clark International Airport (CIA) on Monday before he could depart aboard a Philippine Airlines flight bound for Incheon.
The BCIU said the Korean was arrested and stopped from leaving after the immigration officer who processed him saw that his name prompted a positive hit in the BI’s database of aliens with derogatory records.
It was gathered that aside from being wanted in his country, Lee is also on the wanted list of the BI, which filed a deportation case against him in June last year for being an undesirable alien.
“We will thus deport him as soon as we have secured the necessary clearances for his departure. He was already included in our blacklist to prevent him from reentering the country,” Tansingco said.
He added that Lee will remain at the BI warden facility in Camp Bagong Diwa, Taguig City until the day he is deported.
BI agents nab SoKor man wanted for telco fraud
Information provided by the BCIU’s Interpol team revealed that a warrant for Lee’s arrest was issued nearly a year ago by the Suwon district court in Korea.
An Interpol red notice was also issued against him three months later, which became the basis for the BI to slap him with a deportation case.
Korean authorities alleged that between March to May 2021 Lee was a member of a voice phishing syndicate that made random calls to victims to whom they introduced themselves as lenders of financial institutions.
The syndicate reportedly enticed the victims to transfer money to the suspects’ bank accounts by falsely offering low-interest rates in exchange for timely payment of outstanding debts and processing fees.
Meanwhile, immigration agents on Monday arrested a Taiwanese man wanted in his home country for fraud.
The man, identified as Yang Chia-Le, 26 years old, was arrested by officers of the Bureau of Immigration’s (BI) fugitive search unit (FSU) in a residential area along Nueva Vizcaya St., in Bago Bantay, Quezon City.
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