Travel patterns led to arrest of mother-daughter drug smugglers

Bureau of Immigration Commissioner Norman Tansingco lauded on Friday the BI Anti-Terrorist Group (BI-ATG) for its role in the successful interdiction of two drug couriers on 27 September.

In a report given to Tansingco, BI-ATG airport head Bienvenido Castillo III shared that the mother-and-daughter tandem, who were identified as Siti Aishah Binte Awang and Nur Alaviyah Binte Hanaffe, both Singaporeans, were intercepted after arriving at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Terminal 3 via a Qatar Airlines flight QR928 from Doha.

According to Castillo, the two suspects attempted to transit to Hong Kong via the Philippines but the BI officer at NAIA 3 intercepted them after detecting suspicious travel patterns.

Castillo said that they also received information about the suspects from their international counterparts. They observed that the suspects would come in and out of the country in several instances and noted suspicious travels.

He added that they also discovered another individual with the exact same patterns; hence, they immediately coordinated the matter with the members of the NAIA-Drug Interdiction Task Group (NAIA-DITG).

After alerting the task group, members from the Bureau of Customs (BOC) and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) conducted an immediate entrapment operation with the assistance of airline representatives.

A canine inspection showed that the duo's luggage contained suspicious materials. Checks by the BOC confirmed that their bags contained six cookie tin cans and five cylindrical chip cans containing 564 pellets with a white powdered substance.

The substance, identified as cocaine, totaled more or less 14,360 grams, with a current street value of PhP76,108,000.

Tansingco hailed the arrest and commended the BI-ATG for the immediate and proactive actions that led to the interdiction.

The BI chief said that the alertness of their immigration officers in analyzing the travel patterns of these criminals was instrumental in this arrest.

Tansingco added that close coordination among government agencies in the airports is necessary to protect our borders from all kinds of criminal activity.

Both suspects were arrested by the PDEA and remain under the agency's custody for the filing of the appropriate charges against them.