(INQUIRER.net file photo)
MANILA, Philippines — A South Korean national wanted for telecommunications fraud in his home country was arrested in Taguig City, the Bureau of Immigration (BI) reported Friday.
In a report to BI commissioner Jaime Morente, the bureau’s Fugitive Search Unit (FSU) said 48-year-old Song Chaehyok was arrested inside a luxury condominium in Taguig City on Thursday.
BI-FSU acting chief Rendel Ryan Sy said Song is subject of an Interpol red notice issued in 2018 after he was charged with fraud before a district court in Jeonju, South Korea.
Song was accused of being a member of a syndicate that engages in voice phishing to defraud its victims.
Information obtained from the Interpol’s national central bureau in Manila showed that from 2015 to 2016, Song and his cohorts would make random calls to their victims in Korea pretending to be bank officers soliciting investments.
The syndicates would then entice their victims to remit money to their bank accounts. It is estimated that the syndicate’s earnings amounted to 5.8 billion won or over P246 million.
Song is currently detained at the BI warden facility in Camp Bagong Diwa in Taguig City pending his deportation.
Song is also placed in the immigration blacklist which perpetually bans him from re-entering the Philippines.