In a recent operation at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA), the Bureau of Immigration (BI) successfully intervened to prevent a young woman from falling victim to a mail-order bride scam. The 22-year-old was stopped by the BI’s Immigration Protection and Border Enforcement Section (I-PROBES) just before she was set to board a flight to Shanghai, China on January 14.
The woman had claimed she was traveling to visit her Chinese husband, but discrepancies in her story and the documents she provided raised red flags among the immigration officers. Further questioning revealed inconsistencies in her account of the marriage, which she claimed followed a three-year relationship.
Under scrutiny, the woman confessed that she had actually met her ‘husband’ through an online app on November 21 of the previous year. They met in person the next day and married two days later, with the woman receiving a payment of PHP50,000 for her family.
BI Commissioner Joel Anthony Viado highlighted the role of social media in facilitating such schemes, noting that many Filipinas end up trapped in sham marriages and forced into unpaid domestic work. The rescued woman was handed over to the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking for deeper investigation and to pursue legal action against the perpetrators.