The Bureau of Immigration (BI) has stopped nine Indian nationals from sneaking inside the country.
Immigration Commissioner Jaime Morente said the Indian nationals attempted to enter the country on Wednesday at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) terminal 3 using fake visas, travel and seaman documents.
They were onboard Cathay Pacific flight from Hongkong when they were arrested.
“Verification made with the concerned BI offices confirmed that their visas were not issued by the bureau. These were later found to have been fraudulently manufactured as it contained dubious letterheads and transaction reference numbers as well as bogus signatures and bar codes,” Marc Red Mariñas, BI port operations division chief said.
The Indians were identified as Chinchorkar Udayan Raju, Surjit Singh, Kari Ram Kiran, Tandel Gatiraj narsinhbhai, Jaspreet Singh, Gore Chetan Vinod, Toppo Clinson Christophar, Varinder Singh, and Amandeep Singh.
Marinas said the Indian nationals insisted that they were legitimate seafarers but upon investigation, the ship they cited had already left for Singapore.
Morente said they were immediately deported and will be kept in the Bureau’s watch list.
“I have also ordered their inclusion in our blacklist because they are undesirable aliens who blatantly violated our laws by using spurious immigration documents in trying to enter our country,” Morente said.
Morente added that a further investigation will be conducted to see if any personnel from NAIA was involved in the foiled smuggling. Theodore Jason Patrick K. Ortiz, INQUIRER.net trainee/JE