Immigration agents foil human smuggling

Officers of the Bureau of Immigration at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) have foiled another human trafficking with the recent arrest of three Myanmar nationals who tried to leave the country with tampered Singaporean passports.

Immigration Commissioner Alipio Fernandez Jr. said on Tuesday that the three "aliens" were intercepted at the NAIA departure on August 3 as they were about to board a Lufthansa Airlines flight to Mexico.

The three were identified by their assumed Singaporean names as Chan Ngai Chong, Firhad Uzir Bin Abdul Rahim and Aziz Bin Yatim.

Fernandez said the aliens, who are detained at the Bicutan immigration jail, will undergo deportation proceedings for using spurious immigration documents.

"After they are deported, they will be placed in our blacklist and banned from reentering the country," Fernandez said.

The Immigration intelligence chief, lawyer Faizal Hussin, said the foreigners admitted during investigation that they are citizens of Myanmar and that the Singaporean passports seized from them were tampered.

Hussin said the three also confessed that they bought their spurious passports for $2,500 from a fraud syndicate in the country.

All three, Hussin added, have signified their intention to be voluntarily deported to their country of origin.

The Immigration Board of Commissioners is expected to order their deportation within the next few days.

The arrest of the three foreigners was only the latest in a series of human smuggling try that were foiled by immigration officers at the NAIA over the past several months. William B. Depasupil