By Dean Aubrey Caratiquet
On Wednesday morning (Dec. 25), a human trafficker was intercepted by Bureau of Immigration (BI) personnel at the Clark International Airport in Pampanga.
BI Immigration Protection and Border Enforcement Section (I-PROBES) chief Mary Jane Hizon reported the interception of 4 victims and their escort after attempting to depart to Singapore via a Cebu Pacific flight.
She reported that the four victims, all in their 20s, initially claimed to be traveling alone for tourism purposes. However, after verification by Immigration personnel, they later admitted to be traveling together with a 38-year-old female escort and have been offered a P60,000 salary to work illegally abroad.
The victims admitted that they were actually bound for Cambodia to work as encoders in a POGO-like company after being recruited by an Indonesian woman. Their escort admitted that she was instructed by the recruiter to assist the four victims in entering Singapore and eventually crossing to Cambodia.
BI Commissioner Joel Anthony Viado said that victims of these syndicates that illegally recruit Filipinos to work in call centers abroad usually end up in scam hubs to work as catfishers.
Catfishing or catphishing is a type of online scam wherein the scammers create fake identities and fabricate relationships with their victims, who they later ask to send money or invest in fake accounts.
Other intercepted cases of suspected recruitment for scam and catfishing hubs
Last Dec. 10, a 28-year-old man bound for Thailand at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Terminal 3 was intercepted after claiming to be a tourist but later admitting that he was recruited online and given documents to be transported to Laos via Bangkok.
The following day, on Dec. 11, four individuals—a man and three women—presented themselves as officemates on a company trip to Thailand with an alleged foreign national supervisor, but eventually they admitted that they were bound to Cambodia to perform illegal work.
On Dec. 18, five individuals (two men and three women) claimed they were traveling for work in Thailand but later admitted that they were set to be illegally transported to Myanmar. They used counterfeit departure stamps in a bid to evade immigration checks and paid P20,000 to their recruiters.
On Dec. 21, two distinct interceptions occurred: two women were stopped at Clark International Airport en route to Thailand, while three men were accosted at the NAIA Terminal 3 for claiming to travel to Singapore for leisure. All five admitted that they had been recruited for customer service jobs with a promised monthly salary of P50,000.
The following day, on Dec. 22, a 27-year-old female was apprehended at Mactan-Cebu International Airport (MCIA). She initially claimed she was traveling alone to Thailand but later confessed that she had been recruited to work in the said country under false pretenses.
The BI chief said that the series of interceptions show that while online gaming and scam hubs have been declared illegal in the Philippines, some remain in operation in other countries, luring Filipinos to work illegally as scammers.
All victims have been turned over to the Inter-Agency Council against Trafficking (IACAT) for further investigation and to pursue legal action against their recruiters.
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