Bureau of Immigration officers intercepted 11 suspected human trafficking victims in separate incidents who attempted to leave disguised as tourists at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport.
BI port operations division chief Grifton Medina said the 11 victims were turned over to the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking at the NAIA Terminal 3, after BI officers discovered that the passengers were illegally recruited to work abroad without proper documents.
“All of them were bound for countries other than what they presented, in an apparent effort to mislead immigration officers about their destination and purpose of travel,” Medina said.
The plan, he added, is for the victims to depart Manila as tourists and upon reaching the next port would be handed their working visas and instructed to proceed via a connecting flight to their final work destinations.
Anthony Lopez, head of the BI’s travel control and enforcement unit at NAIA 3, said two passengers bound for Singapore were prevented from boarding their flights after it was found that they were actually bound for Doha, Qatar to work.
The duo was allegedly accompanied by two employees of a manpower agency known to be recruiting Filipinos for overseas jobs via the Internet.