BI collars 4 wanted foreigners
THE Bureau of Immigration (BI) announced the arrest of four foreign fugitives wanted by authorities for committing serious crimes in their homelands.
According to Immigration Commissioner Norman Tansingco, the four aliens will be deported to their respective countries and placed on the bureau’s blacklist to prevent them from re-entering the Philippines.
He disclosed that the aliens were apprehended from Oct. 10 to Oct. 18 in separate operations conducted by operatives from the BI’s Fugitive Search Unit (FSU) in Pampanga, Catanduanes, and Metro Manila.
Those arrested included two Koreans, an American, and a Dutch national, all presently detained at the bureau’s detention facility Camp Bagong Diwa, Taguig City, pending deportation proceedings.
Arrested last Oct. 10 in Clark, Pampanga was Korean national Kim Won, 34, who is the subject of an arrest warrant from the Dongbu district court in Seoul for allegedly engaging in telecommunications fraud.
On Oct. 13, FSU agents arrested another Korean national inside his condominium unit in Taguig City, who the Daegu district court issued an arrest warrant on charges of running a prostitution racket and human trafficking scheme via the Internet.
Dutch national Jan Cornelis Stuurman, a 71-year-old suspected pedophile, was arrested in Virac, Catanduanes, on Oct. 14 for being an overstaying alien and for allegedly exploiting three Filipino minors.
The last fugitive arrested is American Steven Vernon Cross, 51, who is wanted to stand trial before the US District Court for Eastern Virginia, where he is charged with committing wire fraud and laundering money instruments.
Cross is also a convicted sex offender sentenced to one-year imprisonment by a court in Kent County, Michigan, for sexually assaulting a child.
The four are just part of the 130 foreign fugitives that the BI’s FSU has arrested from January to October this year.
“They are undesirable aliens whose continued presence here poses a serious threat to the public interest,” Tansingco said. “Hence they were arrested and will be immediately deported as undesirable aliens,” he added. Jun I. Legaspi and Hector Lawas
