MANILA — The Bureau of Immigration (BI) has detained and lined up for deportation three foreigners arrested at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) last week for using bogus documents.
In a news release issued Monday, BI Commissioner Jaime Morente said the foreigners will undergo deportation proceedings for possessing spurious travel papers, which they presented to immigration officers at the airport.
The three passengers are just the latest addition to the list of foreigners arrested in recent weeks at the NAIA for using counterfeit documents.
“We are alarmed by what appears to be a proliferation in the use of fraudulent travel documents by foreigners who attempt to enter or exit our country,” Morente said.
He said he had instructed BI-NAIA personnel “to double their vigilance to put a stop to these individuals attempting to travel illegally.”
BI Officer-in-Charge Deputy Commissioner and Port Operations Division (POD) chief Marc Red Mariñas identified those arrested as Moustapha Harry Dicko, a Mali national; Gabriel Martinez Mendoza, a Mexican; and Joynul Islam, a Bangladeshi.
Mariñas said all three passengers were immediately brought to the BI jail in Taguig City after they were intercepted on separate occasions at the NAIA last week.
“They will soon be deported and later placed in our blacklist so they won’t be able to re-enter the Philippines,” he added.
Islam was arrested Aug. 1 at the NAIA 2 terminal for having a fraudulently acquired electronic travel authority (ETA) as he was about to depart for Canada, while Martinez Mendoza was intercepted at NAIA 1 a few hours later when the biopage of his Mexican passport was found to be altered.
The following day, Dicko was apprehended at NAIA 3 when he tried to leave for Indonesia with a tampered Mali passport.
“Our immigration officers undergo rigorous training on document assessment and fraud detection, and we have also upgraded our technologies to better detect cases of fraud,” said Morente.
“Let this latest string of apprehensions serve as a warning. Schemes like this will not pass,” he said. BI/PR