IMMIGRATION personnel at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport recently intercepted a Bangladeshi national and a Pakistani family for using fake Canadian passports.
BI Port Operations Division Chief Grifton Medina said 31-year-old Md Abu Saied was intercepted last September 30 at the NAIA terminal 2 before he could board his connecting flight to Los Angeles, California.
Saied had arrived as a transit passenger from Bangkok, Thailand when he was accosted and invited for questioning by immigration officers who doubted his nationality.
“During questioning he admitted paying US$4,000 to a syndicate in Bangladesh for the Canadian passport which he would use to enter the US illegally,” Medina said, adding that the BI’s document forensic laboratory had confirmed that the bio page of the Canadian passport was a counterfeit.
BI Border Control and Intelligence Unit Chief Rommel Tacorda said Saied also presented a spurious driver’s license and social insurance ID purportedly issued in Ontario to immigration personnel.
“He initially claimed that he lived for 12 years in the French-speaking city of Montreal but he could not even converse in French,” Tacorda said.
Meanwhile, immigration personnel also intercepted last October 12 a Pakistani family using fake Canadian visas who attempted to fly to Canada from the NAIA terminal 1.
Medina said the Pakistanis, identified as Mohsin Maqsood, Iqra Mohsin, and Rida Mohsin were arrested by members of the Bureau’s Travel Control and Enforcement Unit, upon referral by airline staff.
The trio, who attempted to board a Philippine Airlines flight to Canada, presented passports with dubious Canadian visas.
Medina said that during questioning, they admitted that they bought their fake Canadian visas from a Pakistani and an Indian national, to whom they paid almost half a million pesos for processing.
Verification with Canadian authorities revealed that the visas were indeed counterfeits.
Medina said the four were brought to the BI detention facility in Camp Bagong Diwa, Taguig City pending their deportation.
