Court orders arrest of Italian in trafficking case

A Bacoor Regional Trial Court (RTC) has issued an arrest warrant against a London-based Italian national and five others accused of illegally recruiting Filipinos for overseas jobs but allegedly forcing them to perform online sex shows.

In an order dated 4 March, Bacoor RTC Branch 119 found probable cause to indict Adel En Nouri and his co-accused for qualified human trafficking under Republic Act No. 9208, as amended by Republic Act No. 10364, or the Expanded Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act.

Also ordered arrested were Nouri’s alleged Filipino cohorts Raffaela Razon, Krizia Ann Geronda Loyang, Ricardo Evangelista Fernandez, and Joshua Sy Lim.

“Upon judicious examination of the amended information, the resolution of the public prosecutor and the attachments thereof, the Court finds probable cause for the indictment of accused Adel En Nouri,” the court said in its order.

The court recommended no bail, noting that qualified human trafficking is a non-bailable offense.

Nouri was initially excluded from the information filed before the court after prosecutors earlier dismissed the complaint against him due to insufficient evidence.

However, the Bacoor City Prosecutor’s Office later granted a motion for partial reconsideration filed by the complainants.

“After a careful evaluation of the records and the arguments offered by the complainants, the undersigned is inclined to give due course to the instant motion for partial reconsideration,” Deputy City Prosecutor Michael Philip Silvala said in a resolution issued on 27 February 2026.

“Complainants were able to establish the fact that herein respondent Adel En Nouri was positively identified as the same person who purportedly offered them jobs in Europe after acknowledging payments of their placement fees, and the same person who coerced them to perform lascivious conduct and pornography. Respondent Nouri only offered denial and alibi as his defense,” the resolution added.

According to the complainants, they encountered the Facebook page of Nouri International Placement Agency in May 2025, which advertised jobs for Filipinos as domestic helpers in Europe.

They later met alleged agency staff in Bacoor, Cavite and were promised jobs abroad with a monthly salary of P80,000, but were required to pay P100,000 in placement fees.

The victims said they were eventually instructed to proceed to the agency’s supposed office in Queens Row West, Bacoor, where they discovered the location was a residential house.

They alleged they were forced to perform household tasks and later coerced into sexual acts on camera with Nouri as the audience.

The victims claimed the acts were carried out at gunpoint by one of the respondents.