FOUR more trafficking victims made to posed as tourists to be able to leave the country were intercepted by immigration agents at the Clark International Airport over the weekend, Immigration Commissioner Norman Tansingco yesterday said.
Tansingco said operatives of the Bureau of Immigration’s (BI) Immigration Protection and Border Enforcement Section (I-PROBES) reported the interception of the victims — three females and a male — last Saturday after they attempted to depart on board a Cebu Pacific flight bound for Bangkok, Thailand.
He said two of the victims were cousins, who were recruited via Facebook to work in Koh Kong, Cambodia.
“They invited two others to join them to the worksite, and they were said to have been instructed to pose as tourists to Thailand for vacation to deceive immigration authorities,” Tansingco said.
On interrogation, the four admitted that they were offered a job as non-voice customer representatives with a monthly salary of around $800, with free food and accommodation.
“Paulit-ulit na lang. These individuals have good backgrounds, are tech savvy, yet they chose to be blinded by the offers of these syndicates,” the BI chief said.
Tansingco said hundreds of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) have been repatriated from various countries who were recruited using the same modus and who ended up working in scam hubs with low salaries and were physically abused.
