Police and immigration agents arrested a member of a syndicate that manufactures and sells fake Philippine passports to foreigners.

 

            Bureau of Immigration (BI) Commissioner Ricardo David Jr. disclosed that Arsenio Ortega was arrested last July 10 in an entrapment operation conducted by joint operatives of the BI and Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG).

 

            Ortega was arrested after an Aghan, Ahmady Mokhtar a.k.a. Faisal Abdullatif, helped authorities set up the entrapment operation at a coffee shop in Binondo, Manila.  Mokhtar positively identified Ortega as the one who sold him a fake Philippine passport.

The arresting agents seized from Marcelo several fake documents, identification cards, mobile phones, a handheld radio, and a blue book where he kept a record of his shady business transactions.

Ortega is now detained at the CIDG headquarters in Camp Crame, Quezon City while Mokhtar was brought to the BI jail in Bicutan, Taguig.

 

            David said the Afghan will undergo deportation proceedings for illegally entering the country by using the fake passport he bought from Ortega.

 

            He described Mokhtar as an illegal entrant who is an excludable alien under the immigration act.

            Earlier, immigration officers at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) intercepted the Afghan after arriving from Macau where he was apprehended for using a fake Philippine passport under the assumed name Dennis Lee.

 

            The passenger then admitted during investigation his true name and nationality and identified a certain Marcelo as the one who gave him the passport that he used to travel from Manila to Malaysia last July 4.

 

            He then attempted to travel from Manila to Macau last July 6 but was arrested upon arriving there and deported to Manila three days later.###