AUTHORITIES reported Bureau of Immigration (BI) agents arrested three Georgian nationals who arrived at the airport possessing fake visas.
Immigration Port Operations Division Chief Grifton Medina said the foreigners were apprehended on November 11 after disembarking from an Etihad flight from Abu Dhabi.
Medina said investigations revealed the aliens were planning to transit Manila prior to embarking on several connecting flights to Canada.
“The Georgians initially presented themselves as humanitarian workers on a business vacation sponsored by an international nongovernment organization.”
Immigration officers said they found out the aliens planned to stay in Manila for only two days, fly to Qatar and Azerbaijan, before sneaking into Canada. Medina said the arrest was another foiled attempt of a suspected crime syndicate to use the Philippines as a jump-off point country to enter Canada and other parts of the US and Europe.
Although the Georgians had valid Philippine entry visas, they were subjected to secondary inspection after immigration officers noticed irregularities on the Canadian visas in their passports.
BI’s forensic laboratory experts certified the Canadian visas are counterfeit. Medina said Canadian embassy officials corroborated the findings and described the visas as “nonexistent in their system.”
The Georgians were subsequently brought to the BI Detention Facility in Camp Bagong Diwa in Taguig and their cases were forwarded to the Bureau’s Legal Division.
The three will be charge for violation of the Philippine Immigration Act, which penalizes a person who “obtains, accepts or uses any immigration document, knowing it to be false.”