Government to check on West Africans in Phl

MANILA, Philippines - The Bureau of Immigration (BI) and the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) are going to look into the backgrounds of West Africans in the country amid reports that some of them are involved in drug trafficking and convincing Filipinos into becoming their drug mules, officials said yesterday.

“We are counterchecking with the schools because there had been reports that (members of) some drug syndicates pose as students,” BI spokeswoman Maria Antonette Bucasas-Mangrobang said.

She said the BI has been monitoring the arrival of West Africans since it started the probe in January. For the whole of 2010 and the first quarter of this year, BI records show 2,207 West Africans arrived in the country. There are 16 West African countries, including Nigeria, Togo, Sierra Leone, and Ghana.

Half of the West Africans in the country are from Nigeria: 907 of them are tourists, 76 are employed, 56 are married to Filipinas and 55 are students.

BI Commissioner Ricardo David also ordered the bureau’s legal officers to meticulously screen the visa applications of West African nationals following reports that many of them obtained resident visas here after being admitted as tourists.

Meanwhile, NBI Director Magtanggol Gatdula said they are closely monitoring the movements of certain Nigerians who are suspected of being members of syndicates using overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) as drug mules, who are paid from $3,000 to $5,000 to smuggle illegal drug into other countries.

The government’s vow to strengthen efforts to run after foreign drug syndicates and their local counterparts came after the execution of three Filipinos in China for transporting heroin.

Members of West African drug syndicates sometimes court female OFWs, then force them to transport the drugs to other countries in exchange for money or marriage or by threatening their lives or that of their relatives.

Last February, the NBI arrested Marita Lualhati Reyes, who swallowed 10 capsules of heroin and stuffed a larger capsule in her genitals, as she arrived at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport. Reyes said her Nigerian boyfriend promised to marry her. She yielded 352 grams of heroin with a street value of P400,000.

NBI intelligence chief Ruel Lasala said the heroin, which came from Pakistan, was transported to the Philippines via Thailand. The heroin was supposed to be brought to China, its final destination, by another syndicate member who was supposed to meet Reyes at the airport.