The Bureau of Immigration (BI) officers at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) once again intercepted another China-bound victim of the mail-order bride scheme.

A 20-year-old female victim was intercepted by members of the BI's Immigration Protection and Border Enforcement Section (I-PROBES) while she was being escorted by a 34-year-old Chinese man. As required by anti-trafficking regulations, the identities of the suspect and the victim have been kept confidential.

Before the victim and her supposed spouse could board their AirAsia flight last 28 February midnight at NAIA Terminal 3, the victim first claimed to be traveling to Shenzhen, China.

“The immigration officer said both the victim and the suspect acted very suspiciously when asked about their supposed marriage,” said BI Commissioner Norman Tansingco.

According to I-PROBES, they were subjected to secondary inspection after the female victim could not provide basic information regarding their marriage. They were supposedly married in a Pasig City restaurant, according to a PSA certificate of marriage that she purportedly produced.

Upon inspection of their documents by the BI’s forensic document laboratory, it was confirmed that the document they presented was genuine.

However, Tansingco said that their officers were alert enough to be suspicious of their statements, having seen several cases like that before.

Later, the victim admitted that no actual wedding happened, and the marriage certificate was processed by her Chinese escort through an agent. They also said that they had paid P45,000 for the processing of the genuine document with fake details.

“This is obviously another case of the mail-order bride scheme that has resurfaced recently,” said Tansingco. “In these schemes, victims are made to pretend to be the spouse of a foreign national, but they end up as pseudo wives doing domestic work in their destination,” the BI chief added.

Both the victim and her escort were turned over to the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking for further investigation and filing of appropriate cases.