The Bureau of Immigration (BI) has expelled six Chinese nationals, who along with 72 Taiwanese, were arrested two weeks ago in Davao City for alleged involvement in extortion and phone fraud.

 

            Immigration Commissioner Ricardo David Jr. disclosed that the Chinese nationals left last Tuesday aboard a Cathay Pacific flight bound for Hongkong in compliance with an order to leave issued against them.

 

            David said the aliens were expelled after a Davao City court granted their petition for a habaeas corpus and ordered their release from police detention.

 

            The BI chief explained that even before the court ordered their release, he already issued an order directing the six Chinese nationals to leave the country for being undesirable aliens.

            He stressed that the Chinese nationals, who are mere tourists, are undesirable aliens due to charges that they operated illegal call center hubs that blackmailed and extorted money through phone calls to the victims.

 

            “We have always held that the stay of aliens in the Philippines is a mere privilege and not a right, thus a foreigner who engages in illegal activities here should be denied that privilege,” David said.

 

            The deportees were identified as Kun Long, Xiang Zhong, Jungcheng Huang, Ning Li, Yao Lin Li, and Haitao Pan.

 

            Lawyer Arvin Santos, BI legal division chief, said the same court denied a petition for a habeas corpus filed by the 72 Taiwanese arrested with the Chinese in separate raids by Davao policemen last April 18.

 

            It was gathered that the raids happened after officials from the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office (TECO) sought the help of the Philippine National Police in stopping the activities of the fraudulent call center syndicate.

 

The suspects would purportedly pose as call center agents and blackmail their victims in China and Taiwan into paying purportedly their outstanding water, electric and telephone bills.

 

The victims were allegedly forced to pay for fear that they would be charged in court as claimed by the suspects who phoned them.

 

Seized during the raids were laptop computers, cellphones and other electronic devices allegedly used by the suspects who were later charged with violating the access device regulation act of 1998.###