The Bureau of Immigration (BI) officials at Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 3 intercepted a female victim of a fraudulent departure stamp scheme from leaving the country last 11 October.
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 to Vietnam, but she failed to pass the BI’s primary inspection.
Viado disclosed that the victim attempted to convince the officer that she had already completed the immigration departure procedures by showing her passport to the immigration counter, which already had a fake departure stamp 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 P80,000 for a fake stamp, but she was able to negotiate it down to P65,000.
The departure stamp on the victim’s passport was determined to be counterfeit by a forensic investigation conducted by the BI’s document laboratory.
It’s important to remember that in previous cases, the syndicates demanded a large processing fee in return for false promises that their victims would be able to easily pass the immigration process.
The victim was handed over right away to the Inter-Agency Against Trafficking for additional investigation and help in filing charges against her recruiters.