spot_img
28.6 C
Philippines
Friday, March 29, 2024

Pakistani with ‘fake’ documents nabbed at NAIA

- Advertisement -

Government agents arrested a Pakistani national caught in possession of questionable travel documents at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 1.

Immigration officers placed the departing passenger Salman Khan, 25, under arrest for trying to leave the country carrying a passport with fake Philippine visa.

NAIA chief immigration officer Grifton Medina said Khan is an overstaying alien in the Philippines.

“Our immigration officers became suspicious of his documents and his demeanor, so he was referred for secondary inspection to members of the [Bureau of Immigration] Travel Control and Enforcement Unit [TCEU],” Medina said.

- Advertisement -

It was during the investigation that the Philippine visa on the Pakistani’s passport was confirmed to be a counterfeit by the BI’s forensic document laboratory, he added.

According to BI-TCEU Chief Erwin Ortañez, Khan’s passport also contained a fake BI departure stamp purportedly showing that he arrived in the country on Nov. 18 last year, through a fake Philippine visa that was supposedly issued last Oct. 10, 2018.

The “said arrival, however, was not in our travel database, which meant that he did not really arrive on that date,” Ortañez said.

Further investigation also showed that Khan’s last arrival in the country was in June 2015, making him an overstaying alien.

The foreigner was brought to the BI detention facility in Bicutan, Taguig City pending his prosecution for violation of the Philippine Immigration Act.

Immigration Commissioner Jaime Morente reminded aliens not to try such “foolish acts,” saying that the BI has “sophisticated equipment that can immediately detect fraudulent passports and visas,” and that such attempts will immediately be caught.

Late last year, three Georgians were also arrested for possession of questionable Canadian visas.

The foreigners were apprehended on Nov. 11 upon arrival at the NAIA Terminal 1 on board an Etihad flight from Abu Dhabi.

Investigations showed that the illegal aliens were planning to transit in Manila prior to embarking on several connecting flights to Canada.

The Georgians initially presented themselves as humanitarian workers on a business vacation sponsored by an international non-government organization.

But Immigration officers found out that the foreigners planned to stay in Manila for only two days, then fly to Qatar and Azerbaijan, before sneaking into Canada.

Although the Georgians had valid Philippine entry visas, they were subjected to secondary inspection after immigration officers noticed irregularities on the Canadian visas attached in their passports.

Immigration forensic experts certified that the Canadian visas are counterfeit, a finding which was later corroborated by Canadian embassy officials who described the travel documents as “non-existent in their system.”

- Advertisement -

LATEST NEWS

Popular Articles