‘Wedding’ inside travel agency alerts BI to mail-order bride scam

The Immigration bureau reports the rescue of a Filipino woman from a mail-order bride scheme. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines — The Bureau of Immigration (BI) said it had rescued a Filipino woman from a mail-order bride scheme after she admitted to authorities that she and her supposed husband got “married” inside a travel agency in Manila.

The woman and her so-called spouse, a Chinese national, attempted to depart for Fujian, China, on Monday and presented a marriage certificate indicating that they were married in 2019.

However, immigration officers found inconsistencies between the victim’s statements and the documents she presented, especially after she claimed that she got married inside a travel agency.

READ: BI foils mail-order bride case at Naia

BI spokesperson Dana Sandoval said the victim recalled that a “wedding” happened recently at a travel agency based in Binondo, Manila, but the marriage certificate showed that they got married in another municipality.

Same pattern

“She admitted that her pseudo-boyfriend, a Chinese guy, paid about P100,000 to get the marriage certificate without an actual wedding that took place. So in her mind, their meetup inside the travel agency was what she thought was the wedding,” Sandoval told the Inquirer in an interview on Wednesday.

Sandoval said it was her first time to encounter an alleged victim of a mail-order bride scheme who claimed she got married inside a travel agency, although it followed the same pattern of “couples” being able to secure a marriage certificate without an actual wedding taking place.

“Before, they used to show a wedding picture with their backs turned (to the camera); they seemed ready with a story and had rehearsed (how it will be told). This one was apparently not briefed when they recruited her, so she was unaware of the details,” the BI official said.

Both the victim and her alleged husband were turned over to the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking for further investigation.

READ: BI warns vs ‘mail-order bride’ trafficking

Sandoval said the National Bureau of Investigation would be joining the probe to track down the traffickers, starting with the travel agency and the Chinese national, while the Department of Justice (DOJ) would be filing the charges.

“This is yet again another case of the mail-order bride scheme wherein women are promised a better life abroad but are made to work as domestic workers with little to no salaries,” Immigration Commissioner Norman Tansingco said in a statement.

Rampant falsification

Earlier in March, Assistant Justice Secretary Jose Dominic Clavano IV said the DOJ was alarmed over the rampant falsification of documents after another China-bound victim of the mail-order bride scheme was intercepted by immigration officers.

The 20-year-old female victim, being escorted by a 34-year-old Chinese man, allegedly presented a marriage certificate from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) stating that the two got married in a restaurant in Pasig City.

“On its face, [the document] looks valid, but it is fake. The special paper that PSA uses, the badges that you see in the document, it looks really valid but in reality, when you verify the information in the document, they are fake,” Clavano told reporters.

He said the incident prompted Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla to order an investigation by the NBI’s antifraud division on the cases of falsification of documents being presented at the immigration counters.