The Bureau of Immigration has ordered th e deportation of three foreigners who were arrested in separate occasions at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport for using bogus documents.
BI Commissioner Jaime Morente said Monday the foreigners were found using spurious travel papers which they presented to immigration officers at the airport who were about to leave for Canada.
BI OIC Deputy Commissioner and Port Operations Division chief Marc Red Mariñas identified those arrested as Moustapha Harry Dicko, a Mali national; Gabriel Martinez Mendoza, a Mexican; and Joynul Islam, a Bangladeshi.
“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,” the BI chief said.
Morente had instructed BI-Naia personnel “to double their vigilance to put a stop to these individuals attempting to travel illegally,”
Mariñas said all three passengers were immediately brought to BI jail in Taguig City after they were intercepted on separate occasions at the Naia last week.
“They will be deported and placed in our blacklist so they won’t be able to re-enter the Philippines,” he said.
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 the NAIA 3 when he tried to leave for Indonesia with a tampered Mali passport.
“Our Immigration Officers undergo rigorous trainings 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. Vito Barcelo
