A female traveler pretending to be an Interpol agent was intercepted Friday, 8 March by alert Bureau of Immigration officers at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 3.

Bienvenido Castillo III, head of the Immigration Protection and Border Enforcement Section, said the 34-year-old female passenger was attempting to leave the country via an AirAsia flight bound for Bangkok, Thailand.

Castillo said the passenger was made to pose herself as an Interpol agent under the Protective Intelligence Anti-Crime Organization.

She also presented an identification card and letter orders from PIAO, saying that she was allowed to travel for a holiday.

However, her statements contained contradictions, which the BI officers at NAIA Terminal 3 noticed and immediately referred her for a secondary check.

“It was then that she admitted that her documents are fake and that she was recruited via Facebook to work as a household service worker in Thailand,” Castillo said. “Her recruiter reportedly offered her a P40,000 salary before giving her the documents,” he added.

BI Commissioner Norman Tansingco lamented the use of creative stories and documents by traffickers to traffic their victims.

“Our immigration officers are well-trained to spot inconsistencies and fraud; hence, such attempts will not succeed,” the BI chief stated.

The female passenger was turned over to the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking to give her assistance and for further investigation to file cases against her recruiters.