Taiwanese fugitive busted at Naia

MANILA, Philippines – The Bureau of Immigration (BI) recently arrested a departing Taiwanese fugitive at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia) for using a fake passport.

Grifton Medina, BI port operations division chief, on Monday said that Huang Chung-Chia, 33, was arrested at Naia Terminal 1 last Friday.

Medina also said that Huang is wanted in his country for fraud by the Taichung district prosecutor’s office in Taiwan.

He also has a pending deportation case here in the country stemming from a request from the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office (TECO), Medina added.

According to the immigration, Huang attempted to flee the country by pretending to be a Filipino and using a tampered Philippine passport.

“His real identity was discovered when he surrendered a non-professional driver’s license with his real name and date of birth on it,” BI’s travel control and enforcement unit head Glenn Ford Comia said in a statement.

“He then admitted that he is actually a Taiwanese national, and that he bought his Philippine passport from a fixer for P130,000,” Comia added.

Investigation showed that Huang is an overstaying alien as has been in hiding in the country since June 2 last year.

Following his arrest, BI chief Jaime Morente warned foreigners not to attempt to leave the country via fraudulent means.

“We have sophisticated gadgets that meet international standards,” said Morente.

“These fraud attempts are futile since we can easily detect them. Don’t waste your time and money in these schemes.” /gsg