THE National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) on Thursday asked the Department of Justice (DOJ) to prosecute two immigration officers for allegedly tampering with Bureau of Immigration (BI) records to make it appear that former German payments company Wirecard Chief Operating Officer Jan Marsalek entered the country on June 23, 2020 and left a day after.
In its complaint, the NBI said Perry Michael Pancho and Marcus Nicodemus, assigned at Mactan Cebu International Airport and at the Terminal 1 of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport, respectively, should be held liable for falsification of public documents and violation of the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards among government officials and employees.
The NBI was earlier tasked by Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra to verify a report that Marsalek entered the country on June 23, 2020 to evade the ongoing investigation of the $2.2- billion Wirecard fraud in Germany.
Marsalek is being pursued by German authorities for the high-profile fraud case, which dragged two of the country’s biggest banks—BDO Unibank Inc. (BDO) and Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) into the scandal.
However, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Governor Benjamin Diokno claimed that those behind the anomaly are only using the names of two banks to cover their tracks, citing initial reports none of the missing $2.1 billion entered the Philippine financial system.
Both banks have strongly denied Wirecard was their client.
But the NBI said its investigation showed that it was not possible for Marsalek to enter the country at the height of the travel restrictions imposed as part of the effort of the government to contain the Covid-19 pandemic.
The NBI added that entries on the BI records for June 23 and 24, 2020, were spurious and appeared to be mere “diversionary in order to divert the attention of the authorities in Europe to focus its attention to the Philippines and not in their jurisdiction.
“The investigation showed that Mr. Marsalek’s most recent travel records to the country include spurious ones, to wit: Arrival on June 23, 2020 at Naia Terminal 1 processed by a certain IO [immigration officer] Darren Ilagan but with a mysterious canceled by user remark, and a departure on
June 24, 2020 at Mactan International Airport processed by IO Perry Michael Pancho,” the NBI said.
The NBI also said its probers from the International Airport Investigation Division were able to find out that Ilagan was not in the official list of IOs on duty for the midnight flight schedule on June 23.
“Likewise, Mr. Marsalek’s departure is spurious based on the following: CCTV footages at the MCIA on June 24, 2020 showing that the BI counters are unmanned because there are no available flights immediately before and after the supposed spurious flights, absence of an actual scanned data page of Mr. Marsalek’s passport,” the NBI said.
The complaint said a certification was also issued by the Philippine Airport Ground Staff/ Cebu Station Flight Dispatcher indicating that such flight was canceled since February 1 due to the Covid-19 restrictions.
It added that their probe also showed that Pancho was also not on the official list of immigration officers on duty for the morning schedule of June 24 and “thus believed to have merely went beyond his duty to encode the same.”
Immigration protocols mandated that when a passenger presents himself or herself at the immigration counter for arrival or departure formalities, the assigned IO must perform a derogatory check on him or her.
By doing so, the immigration officer would be able to know if a passenger has a derogatory record, or outstanding warrant of arrest, inclusion in hold departure order, or in the immigration’s watch list, or blacklist.
But the NBI said the derogatory record check may also be canceled by the IO by encoding a “canceled” remark, thus, the next officer should be able to see such and thus be notified of the status when the same passenger resurfaces at the BI counter for departure formalities.
“In this case, the next immigration officer should be able to act accordingly which was contrary to what IO Pancho did when he still encoded a departure record on Mr. Marsalek. It was discovered that the IO Supervisor for the March 5 departure of Mr. Marsalek, a certain Marcus Nicodemus was also the Duty Supervisor on June 23, 2020,” the NBI said.
Meanwhile, Guevarra confirmed that a certain Christopher Bauer, who died in a Parañaque hospital last July 27, was the same person being sought by the NBI for investigation in connection with the multibillion-dollar fraud at Wirecard.
“Per official documents submitted to the NBI, Christopher Reinhard Bauer, a German national/businessman, died on July 27, 2020 in a Parañaque hospital due to natural causes. He was subsequently cremated,” Guevarra said.
“He was the same person summoned by the NBI in connection with the Wirecard fraud investigation,” he added.
Guevarra earlier said Bauer, a former Wirecard executive, is among those being eyed by the NBI and the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) to be investigated in connection with the Wirecard fund mess.
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