Illegal recruiter falls

For failure to send her recruits abroad after two years, a 51-year-old alleged illegal recruiter was literally lifted from her office in Navotas Friday by at least nine of her victims.

The complainants first brought Lorna Anecito, a resident of 1301 M. Naval st., Barangay Daang-Hari, Navotas, to the office of barangay chairman Rolando Trinidad at around 7:30 a.m. but Trinidad turned them over to the police station.

Police named five of the complainants as Sozimo dela Cruz, 55, Mary Jaicyn Sunico, 26, Nelson Vicencio, 42, all residents of Navotas; Ian Louie Bico, 25, of Caloocan City, and Roberto Dinza, 42, a resident of Tondo.

PO2 Rafael Espadero, of the Navotas police Station Investigation and Detection Management Section (SIDMS), said that the complainants themselves brought the suspect to the police station to file formal charges against her.

Espadero said that the complainants claimed that the suspect recruited them sometime in 2004 to work abroad, particularly in the US, Canada, Australia and Korea.

The suspect allegedly asked the recruits to initially pay P100,000 for the immediate processing of their papers.

But after receiving the payment, the suspect reportedly gave the recruits several excuses for the delay in the processing of their documents and that they need to give more money to resolve the problem.

The complainants told the police that most of them incurred large amount of loans to finance their application for work abroad. Two years had past but nothing happened to their application.

This prompted the victims to make a drastic move by removing Anecito from her office at 1254 M. Naval st. in Barangay Daang-Hari and brought her to the Navotas police station.

Espadero said that charges were filed against the suspect and is currently detained at the Navotas municipal jail.–Pete Laude