Taiwanese, Chinese held in Ilocos released

LAOAG CITY, Ilocos Norte -– Immigration officials released 52 Taiwanese and Chinese tourists on Tuesday night, almost 12 hours after they were taken to the Bureau of Immigration office here for verification of their passports and other travel documents.

The tourists, 45 of them Taiwanese and the rest Chinese, were taken from a resort in Vigan City in Ilocos Sur, after they were suspected of involvement in cybercrime operations.

The Vigan police took the foreigners in for questioning after they found computers and electronic gadgets in their possession in their rented rooms at Mom’s Courtyard in Barangay (village) Bongtolan in Vigan.

“They were released at 6:30 p.m. [Tuesday] from our office. It took some time to finish verifying their travel documents. We got the order to release them from the central office,” said a Laoag immigration employee.

The employee, who asked not to be identified by name for lack of authority to speak to reporters, said the immigration office did not have jurisdiction over the foreigners for their supposed violation of the anti-cybercrime law.

“Our office is merely tasked to check whether their passports are authentic and their travel papers are valid,” the employee said.

The source said the police could not press charges against the foreigners or keep them in detention because they were not armed with search or arrest warrants when the police took them from the Vigan resort.

Inspector Glen Dulay, deputy chief of the Vigan police, earlier said the tourists’ presence in a resort in the city raised suspicions because of their possession of electronic gadgets and computers.

Police said the foreigners, who were on vacation, had been renting several rooms at Mom’s Courtyard since March.