The Bureau of Immigration (BI) reported on Saturday afternoon that the BI officer at Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) intercepted a Filipina after she presented a fake Belgian passport that she bought from TikTok.
BI Commissioner Norman Tansingco said that the said passenger was intercepted on 5 September at NAIA Terminal 1 after she attempted to depart the country pretending to be a Belgian national.
The bureau identified the Filipina passenger as Josephine, who attempted to depart via Kuwait Airways bound for Ercan, Cyprus.
BI-NAIA said that Josephine initially presented her Belgian passport to the immigration departure counter, claiming that she was transiting from Kuwait to Izmir, Turkey.
However, the BI officer who examined her travel documents found a number of discrepancies on her passport and supposed arrival stamps. She was immediately referred to the duty supervisor, who then sent all her travel documents for forensic examination.
After examining her travel documents, the BI's forensic documents laboratory confirmed that Josephine's passport, residence card, and immigration stamps were all counterfeit.
Josephine later admitted that she has a Philippine passport and used to be an overseas Filipino worker in Israel but she was deported from Israel earlier this year for working without a valid visa. Then, she came across a TikTok video offering EU passports to travel visa-free to multiple countries.
She said that she paid a total of P700,000 for her fake documents and she was promised to work in Greece as a caregiver, with an offer of P180,000 per month.
After she was offloaded with her flight by the BI, Josephine was immediately turned over to the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking (IACAT) for further investigation and assistance.