THE Bureau of Immigration (BI) said Sunday it had recently deported 75 foreign nationals for alleged involvement in scamming activities in the guise of an online gaming customer relations service provider.
BI Commissioner Norman Tansingco said the foreigners departed the country last September 22 via the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia) Terminal 1 on board a Royal Air flight to Nanning, Guang-xi.
The deportees are part of the group arrested in an operation led by the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking (Iacat) and the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission (PAOCC) against SA Rivendell Global Gaming Corporation, tagged as a scam hub in Pasay City.
More than 600 individuals, mostly Filipinos, were taken into custody during a raid at SA Rivendell last month after they were found operating a scam hub.
The deportees were reportedly involved in love scams and cryptocurrency fraud, targeting Western-ers.
They were later tagged by the BI for undesirability after being listed as part of a scamming syndicate.
There were a total of 76 deportees initially; however, one of the deportees, one He Zeng Ming, was offloaded by the airline due to his medical condition after allegedly experiencing chest pains.
The deportees have all been included in the BI’s blacklist to bar them from entering the country anew.
The BI said another batch of more than 70 individuals from the so-called scam hub would be deported next.
“The strong partnership of the BI with PAOCC as well as IACAT member agencies led to this massive arrest and deportation of foreign nationals abusing their stay in the country,” Tansingco said.
