Bureau of Immigration probes Chinese woman’s entry into Philippines

MANILA, Philippines — The Bureau of Immigration is investigating how a Chinese woman entered the country without an arrival stamp on her passport and any record of her arrival, a BI official said yesterday.

The BI apprehended Zhang Zimo, 23, at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 3 (NAIA-3) as she was about to board a China Southern Airlines flight for Guangzhou, China on June 15.

BI Commissioner Norman Tansingco said immigration officers did not allow Zhang to leave the country after noticing that her passport did not have a BI arrival stamp.

A check of the BI’s travel control system also yielded no record of her arrival.

“It is a blatant offense for any foreigner to enter the country without inspection and admission by immigration authorities or obtain entry into the Philippines by willful, false or misleading representation,” Tansingco said.

Zhang was arrested and detained at the bureau’s warden facility in Camp Bagong Diwa while undergoing deportation proceedings.

The BI is looking into how Zhang managed to enter the country without an entry visa and without undergoing immigration inspection.

“I have ordered a thorough investigation of the incident, to pinpoint who is liable for this incident,” Tansingco said.

The BI also arrested a South Korean woman at the NAIA-3 on June 18 for allegedly being involved in investment scams.

The fugitive was about to board a Cebu Pacific flight for Hanoi, Vietnam when she was offloaded after the bureau’s system showed she was the subject of an Interpol blue notice.

The BI did not reveal the woman’s name, pursuant to existing Interpol protocols on people who are subjects of blue notices.

Tansingco also said that aside from being on the Interpol’s watchlist, the woman’s passport was also reported as lost and stolen to the Interpol.

“She will be deported for being an undesirable and undocumented alien, after which she will be placed in our blacklist and banned from re-entering the country,” he added.

The BI reported that in 2019, the woman was suspected of defrauding several South Koreans in an investment scam wherein she was able to convince the victims to deposit their money into her own bank account.

The victims, who were promised huge returns on their investments, reported combined losses of more than 385 million won or roughly $277,000.

It was also learned that from 2018 to 2019, the woman also duped 10 other victims with whom she opened a joint bank account after she promised they would recover their money, plus the interest, on a staggered basis every two months.

Instead, the suspect absconded with the victims’ money after they each made an initial deposit of 60,000,000 won or $43,000.  — Rudy Santos