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MANILA, Philippines – Immigration officers arrested a Malaysian who reportedly tried to leave the country using a fake Philippine passport.
Toong Yuen Chin, 36, was apprehended at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport last January 11, Immigration Commissioner Jaime Morente said in a statement on Tuesday.
Chin attempted to leave the country via Air Asia flight bound for Kuala Lumpur, according to a report by Grifton Medina, port operations chief of the Bureau of Immigration (BI).
Immigration personnel reportedly became suspicious of Chin when the passport reader could not process the travel document, which bore the name Jacky Cruz Chin.
“During secondary inspection, he confessed his true nationality as a Malaysian and admitted that a fixer named Lawrence facilitated his acquisition of a fraudulent Philippine passport for a fee,” Medina said.
“We will detain him in compliance with Commissioner Morente’s directive that all alien travelers caught using spurious documents be prosecuted for violating our immigration laws,” he added.
Chin was brought to the BI Detention Center in Camp Bagong Diwa in Taguig City where he would be confined while undergoing deportation proceedings.
Seized from Chin were a Philhealth ID and a municipal birth certificate purportedly showing that he was born in Sta. Ana, Manila, to Filipino parents. /cbb