A human trafficking victim who was supposed to fly to the United Arab Emirates was intercepted at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Terminal 3 on April 30, the Bureau of Immigration (BI) said on Friday.
Officers of the BI Travel Control and Enforcement Unit (TCEU) said the victim attempted to leave the country via a Cebu Pacific flight to Dubai.
Upon secondary inspection, the victim admitted that she was invited by her cousin who allegedly processed all her documents, and that she gave her passport and boarding pass to an unknown woman riding a taxi outside the airport.
According to the victim, the woman came back 15 minutes after, handing her an already stamped passport prior to going to the immigration departure area.
The passport was then sent to the BI’s Forensic Documents Laboratory later confirming that the border stamp is counterfeit.
BI Commissioner Norman Tansingco then warned human traffickers who will attempt to employ said schemes. “Our officers have wide-ranging measures to detect and deter fraud,” he said. “We will continue to safeguard the public against trafficking and aid in bringing these perpetrators to justice,” the BI Chief added.
Human trafficking victim intercepted at NAIA
The TCEU officers then sought the assistance of the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking (IACAT) assigned at NAIA for standard turnover procedure.
Meanwhile, two more trafficking victims from Myanmar are now in the country, Bureau of Immigration Commissioner Norman Tansingco reported on Thursday.
Tansingco said that the couple worked as love scammers, and arrived home on April 25.
The victims recounted how they experienced physical abuse, threats, starvation as consequences for not reaching their quota. “According to the victims, they were treated like people in military training, even having them do physical workouts under the scorching sun. They also did not receive proper compensation from their employers,” added Tansingco.
After their recruitment via social media by a certain Maxesa, they left the country last October 2022 purportedly for a four-day vacation in Singapore. The duo said that a male immigration officer allegedly facilitated their departure, along with another victim that was intercepted during secondary checks.
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