DAVAO CITY — The National Bureau of Investigation-International Airport Investigation Division (NBI-IAID) rescued seven human trafficking victims two weeks ago at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport.
In a press statement, the NBI revealed they also arrested one of the three suspects at the airport.
On March 1, eight passengers bound for Bangkok, Thailand via Philippine Airlines were turned over to the Ninoy Aquino International Airport-Inter-Agency Council Against Human Trafficking (NAIA-IACAT) Task Force.
The passengers, who were believed to be possible victims of human trafficking and illegal recruitment, were turned over to the NBI-IAID for investigation.
An investigation conducted by NBI-IAID disclosed that seven of the offloaded passengers were all told to pretend to be longtime friends who were going on a group tour to Bangkok, Thailand.
They were also told to act as employees of different companies. Eventually, they were supposed to travel to Laos, and from there, they were promised jobs at Galaxy Technology as customer service representatives or encoders with salaries amounting to Php46,000 to Php48,000, including free food and accommodation.
The Bureau of Immigration identified the recruiters as Mary Willie Arizala Vicente, Kacyline Cruz, and Luigi Cruz Obong, who are not authorized to recruit and do not have licenses from the Department of Migrant Workers to recruit workers for overseas deployment.
With the help of a certain Dawei , they illegally recruited the seven passengers through fraud, deception, and taking advantage of their financial vulnerability for labor exploitation.
The travel documents of the seven passengers, including their fictitious documents given to them by Vicente were turned over by the Bureau of Immigration to NBI-IAID.
Vicente, who was then with the seven victims, was placed under arrest. She was presented for inquest proceedings before the Duty Inquest Prosecutor of Pasay City for Qualified Trafficking and Syndicated Large Scale Illegal Recruitment.
