NBI launches int’l quest for fugitives

MANILA, Philippines—The reach of the National Bureau of Investigation may just have exceeded its grasp with the launch Saturday of “Borderless Justice,” an agency program by which the NBI will extend its long arm to all parts of the world to hunt down Filipino fugitives.

Daniel Daganzo, head of the NBI Foreign Liaison Division (FLD), said his office will be sending out information on all fugitives who escape the country to every Philippine embassy in the world.

The program aims to speed up documentation and coordination with Interpol and counterpart agencies in other countries.

“Criminal suspects who flee the country will have nowhere to hide,” Daganzo said.

NBI officials and agents, joined by their foreign counterparts who included US Federal Bureau of Investigation personnel, launched the program with a fun run on Saturday morning at the SM Mall of Asia complex in Pasay City.

The run was aimed at publicizing the program and encouraging those who may information about international fugitives to talk to the NBI.

The NBI will seek legal and investigative assistance from the countries where the suspects are believed to be hiding, Daganzo said.

This would mean the faster forwarding of all records and warrants against persons wanted by Philippine courts to foreign embassies and law enforcement counterparts.

Daganzo said information materials will be distributed throughout the country and to every Philippine embassy abroad detailing how and where to report a fugitive’s whereabouts.

“We will guide them as to where and how to file a report that will help us speed up foreign surveillance and arrests,” he said.

Daganzo said the failure to bring back Filipino fugitives to the country was giving the NBI a black eye and needed to be addressed “more vigorously and proactively.”

“Sometimes we are branded as protectors of fugitives,” he said, explaining the urgency of the Borderless Justice program.