Thirteen Filipinos bound for Hong Kong wearing matching t-shirts were intercepted by the Philippines’ Bureau of Immigration (BI) officers in the Manila airport after they were flagged for presenting fake boarding passes, with officials suspecting they had fallen prey to an illegal recruitment scam.
“They were also allegedly told to wear t-shirts bearing the name of a herbal product during their trip, and were instructed to take off the shirts after they are cleared by Immigration,” BI Travel Control and Enforcement Unit Chief Timotea Barizo said in a statement yesterday.
The matching outfits have led BI officials to believe that the 13 Filipinos intercepted in the Ninoy Aquino International Airport last Monday were probably promised jobs in Hong Kong by illegal recruiters.
“It was done to make it seem like they were on an official company trip abroad. Why would they be instructed to misrepresent themselves if there was no ill intention?” Barizo said.
“There were too many inconsistencies in their statements and documents.”
The 13, seven men and six women, were discovered after presenting fake boarding passes at the Cathay Pacific counter.
The airline’s personnel found that the self-printed boarding passes were not actually part of the flight’s manifesto and that the passengers had not been issued tickets.
Hong Kong is a popular destination for Filipinos working abroad. According to the Philippine Statistics Authority, 6.3 percent of Overseas Filipino Workers in April to September last year were in Hong Kong, making it the destination with the third-most OFWs. Meanwhile, Hong Kong’s foreign domestic workers, most of them Filipino, have an enormous economic impact on the city, contributing almost HK$100 billion (about US$12.8 billion) to the local economy last year, according to a recent study
BI Port Operations Division Chief Grifton Medina said that the 13 allegedly only found out that they had been scammed in the airport.
“It … seems that they are victims of … scammers who prey on the public by selling fake tickets at cheap prices to entice their victims,” Medina said.
While talking to BI enforcement officials, some of the victims blamed one of their fellow passengers for luring them to buy the tickets. The unidentified woman denied this and alleged that the boarding passes came from a woman named “Jennifer,” whom she met three times and who instructed her to distribute the tickets to the other passengers.
All 13 passengers have been turned over to the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking (IACAT) for assistance and further investigation, according to the BI statement.
The group halted at the Manila airport weren’t the first Filipino travelers to Hong Kong to fall victim to a scam. In February, three Filipinos responded to a social media offer of a free trip to Hong Kong, but once here, were instructed to open local bank accounts using forged documents. All three were arrested, with Hong Kong authorities suspecting the accounts were to be used for money laundering.
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