PASAY CITY, Philippines — Officers of the Bureau of Immigration (BI) have intercepted a Filipina trafficking victim after presenting a fake Belgian passport she bought from Tiktok.
BI Commissioner Norman Tansingco said that woman was intercepted last September 5 at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Terminal 1.
The Filipina victim, identified as Josephine in her Belgian passport, tried to depart for Ercan, Cyprus via a Kuwait Airlines flight.
She initially presented her Belgian passport to immigration authorities, claiming that she was transiting from Kuwait to Izmar, Turkey.
However, immigration officers noted numerous inconsistencies on Josephine’s passport and supposed arrival stamps.
The matter was immediately escalated to the Duty Immigration Supervisor, who in turn submitted the documents for forensic screening.
The BI’s Forensic Documents laboratory confirmed that Josephine’s passport, residence card, and immigration stamps were all counterfeit.
She was about to be arrested for being an illegal alien after insisting that she is Belgian, when she admitted that she has a Philippine passport, and used to be an overseas Filipino worker in Israel.
She was deported from Israel earlier this year for working without a valid visa.
However, she came across a Tiktok video offering EU passports to travel visa-free to multiple countries.
Josephine allegedly paid a total of PhP 700,000 for her fake documents. She was promised work in Greece as a caregiver, with an offer of PhP 180,000 salary per month.
She was immediately turned over to the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking for assistance and filing of appropriate charges against her recruiter.
(News Report by Marlon Luistro)
