Cebu mail-order bride ring busted

CEBU CITY—Police had filed trafficking charges against the owner of a dating site that investigators said was being used to sell Filipino women to foreign clients.

The charges were filed in the city prosecutor’s office following a raid on the office of Filipino Heart Internet Consultant (FHIC) in Barangay (village) Guadalupe here.

FHIC is a call center firm that supposedly matches Filipino women with foreigners but is allegedly being used for trafficking.

Members of a task force arrested the owner of FHIC, Chinese national Mei Yee, alias Ma Yee, and FHIC’s manager, 34-year-old Ligaya Vitor.

Senior Inspector Michael Virtudazo of the Philippine National Police’s Anti-Cybercrime Group told the Inquirer that charges were filed on Monday against Yee, Vitor and a Leslie Tayong, whose name appeared on FHIC’s business permit.

They were charged with violating Republic Act No. 10364 or  the  Expanded Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act of 2012.

Virtudazo said FHIC, which employs 14 people, had been under surveillance since November last year.

“The only thing I have done wrong is to pretend that I am the model whom the foreigner is chatting with,” said one of the FHIC employees who executed an affidavit against the mail-order bride ring owner and manager.

The female employee, who asked that she not be identified, told the  Inquirer that she joined FHIC for lack of job opportunities. “We have to eat,” she said.

She said her family was forced to move to Cebu province after they lost their home in Tacloban City at the height of Supertyphoon “Yolanda” in November last year.

The female employee was hired four days before FHIC was raided at Calderon Compound in Barangay Guadalupe.

She said the women whose pictures and personal details were posted online by FHIC (idateasia.com) had given their consent to the posting.

A male employee, who also asked that he not be identified, said their job description listed the employees as writers or translators.

The male employee said he had been working for FHIC for seven months arranging meetings and marriages online between Filipino women and foreign patrons.

FHIC invites Filipino women to pose for a photo shoot and post their pictures and their personal information in separate individual online accounts.

Photo shoots are done mostly in the FHIC office. They are posted on the dating site idateasia.com, which caters to foreigners wishing to marry Southeast Asian women.

Foreigners are charged $100 to $399 to chat with potential partners.

The female employee said lewd photos, however, were not posted and discussions about sex were prohibited during chats.

“We would never lure them to meet up with foreigners who only want to take advantage of our models,” the female employee said.

During the raid, police seized 35 computers, an iPad, two cameras, a cell phone and other gadgets.

Yee denied owning the company. “I am nobody,” he said.

He admitted living in the place where FHIC maintains an office but said he was unaware of the firm’s operations.

Judge Ma. Lynna Adviento of the Cebu Regional Trial Court set bail for those arrested at P200,000 each.

Senior Inspector Virtudazo said authorities were keeping watch on another company with the same modus operandi.