Along with the arrest of a Taiwanese earlier this week and the discovery of his alleged fraud hub, the authorities also seized what looked like government-issued identification and license cards, bearing the pictures of suspects under varying Filipino names.
According to Saleema Refran’s report on “24 Oras,” one suspect had a Professional Regulation Commission license card as a registered nursed and another as a chemical engineer.
Other IDs included drivers’ licenses, voters’ IDs, postal IDs and UMID cards.
“Mukha talaga siyang valid actually. Kaya siguro ginamit nila ito at siguro gumana siya when presenting it to certain people,” Department of Justice spokesperson Mico Clavano said.
(It looked valid. Perhaps, that’s why it worked when they presented it to certain people.)
“It’s been a trend na gumagawa sila ng mga new identities pag dating nila dito sa Philippines. Ang tinitignan ho natin ditong rason is they’re really trying to avoid detection,” he added.
(It’s been a trend that fugitives use new identities here in the Philippines. One of the possible reasons for it is they were trying to avoid detection.)
“Pinapa-investigate na po ng DOJ kung paano nila nakuha itong mga IDs na ito,” Clavano said.
(The DOJ is having this investigated, how they got these IDs.)
The DOJ is investigating if the incident was connected to the alleged issuance of pre-arranged employment (9G) visas to fake corporations.
“This will probably go into finding out kung sino talaga ang nag papalikod ng mga sindikato. Kasi alam naman natin na itong mga ito, hindi nila magagawa ito kung wala silang backer or walang nag papalikod sa mga to,” he added.
(This will probably go into finding out who is behind these syndicated groups. We know that they cannot do these without a backer.) —NB, GMA Integrated News
