Bureau of Immigration (BI) has arrested last year a total of 135 foreigners wanted for crimes in their home countries.
Immigration Commissioner Jaime Morente said yesterday the number of foreign fugitives caught last year was more than double the 61 wanted alien criminals that the bureau’s operatives arrested in 2015.
Morente said most of the fugitives have already been sent home where they are now serving their sentences or are being tried for various offenses.
“They were also placed in our blacklist to prevent them from re-entering the country,” the BI chief said, adding that the aliens’ presence here posed a risk to public safety.
Morente vowed that the BI will continue to relentlessly pursue its campaign against foreign fugitives, saying “the Philippines should not be used as a sanctuary for foreign criminals who want to evade prosecution and punishment for crimes they committed in their homeland.”
Statistics from the the bureau’s fugitive search unit (FSU) showed that 80 South Koreans topped the list of the captured fugitives, followed by 25 Chinese and 19 Americans.
Also in the list were three Taiwanese, two Canadians, an Australian, a Japanese, a German, a Pakistani, aBangladeshi, and a Kazakhstani.
FSU records also revealed that 60 of the captured aliens were wanted for cybercrime fraud, 49 for economic crimes, and 12 for sex offenses.
Three of them were charged with murder while others were involved either in smuggling, human trafficking, aggravated assault and, drug pushing. (Jun Ramirez)