The Bureau of Immigration (BI) officials at Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Terminal 3 intercepted a female victim of a fraudulent departure stamp scheme from leaving the country last Friday.
According to BI Commissioner Atty. Joel Anthony Viado, the victim, was a 32-year-old Filipina whose name was withheld in accordance with anti-trafficking laws. She was scheduled to depart the country on a Cebu Pacific Airlines flight heading for Vietnam, but she failed to get through the BI's primary inspection.
Atty. Viado stated that the victim attempted to persuade the officer that she had already completed the immigration departure processes by showing her passport to the immigration counter, which already had a fake departure stamp impressed on it. She also claimed to be a leisure traveler traveling alone in Vietnam.
Upon noticing the suspicious departure stamp on the victim's passport, the immigration officer promptly referred her for secondary inspection.
The victim admitted during the secondary interview that she also intended to visit Thailand following her stay in Vietnam. She intended to apply for an entry visa to Egypt, tempted by the idea of an easy approval process.
She revealed that in order to facilitate her departure, her recruiters allegedly demanded PHP 80,000 for a fake stamp, but she was able to negotiate it down to PHP 65,000.
The departure stamp on the victim's passport was verified as counterfeit by a forensic investigation conducted by the BI's document laboratory.
It's important to remember that in the previous cases, the syndicates demanded a large processing fee in return for fictitious guarantees that their victims would be able to seamlessly clear the immigration process.
The victim was handed over right away to the Inter-Agency Against Trafficking (IACAT) for additional investigation and help in filing charges against her recruiters.