Fugitive South Korean recaptured, deported

The Bureau of Immigration on Tuesday said it has deported a South Korean fugitive, who bolted the agency’s detention cell in Taguig City more than four years ago but was re-arrested in Mindanao last month.

Immigration Commissioner Ricardo David Jr. said You Hang Mok, 50, was flown to Incheon, South Korea via a Korean Airlines flight that left the Ninoy Aquino International Airport last Friday.

David said Mok was expelled barely a few weeks after his re-arrest because he was already issued a summary deportation order by the BI board of commissioners in 2006.

“He was also included in our blacklist, thus he is banned from re-entering the Philippines,” the BI chief said in a statement.

David described the deportee as an undesirable alien because he “blatantly” violated the country’s immigration law by escaping from the bureau’s custody to evade deportation to his country where he is a wanted criminal.

Immigration Intelligence chief Ma. Antonette Bucasas-Mangrobang said BI agents arrested Mok at a golf club in Ozamis City on October 4 after months of intensive surveillance.

She said the Korean, who escaped from BI custody on March 4, 2007, is wanted by authorities in Seoul for large-scale estafa.

“He fled Korea to evade prosecution and there were reports alleging that he was able to establish a business here,” Mangrobang added.

Mok’s re-arrest became controversial when a major newspaper published a photograph of him with President Benigno Aquino and other Mindanao politicians, who paid a courtesy call on the Chief Executive in Malacañang last year.

BI intelligence officials said it was Mok’s appearance at the Palace event that led them to trace his whereabouts and facilitate his re-arrest and deportation.

Originally posted: 4:44 pm | Tuesday, November 15th, 2011