NBI nabs 2 for alleged large-scale illegal recruitment

The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) has arrested two individuals allegedly involved in large-scale illegal recruitment who have switched to a new business that  purportedly encourages fraud among its clients.

Subjects Annie Mallada Bermejo and Jonas Molina Rivera were apprehended by operatives of the bureau's Anti-Organized and Transnational Crime Division (AOTCD) at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 4 on Monday on the strength of arrest warrants for large-scale illegal recruitment, said lawyer Rayner Bergado, executive officer of the AOTCD.

Authorities investigated an alleged illegal recruitment business the duo were involved in in 2015 after receiving information that it recruited seven victims as golf workers in North Carolina and required them to pay as much as P150,000 for the processing of their work visas and job deployment, Bergado said.

The business, Ampersand Training Opportunities Management, was allegedly unregistered with the Philippine Overseas Employment Agency.

A court issued a warrant of arrest against the subjects on August 14 last year, following the large-scale illegal recruitment and estafa cases the NBI's Bacolod District Office filed against them.

But the bureau's Overseas Criminal Investigation Office purportedly learned in February this year that Bermejo and Rivera were operating a new business, Golden Lining Skills Development and Consultancy Services, Incorporated.

This company allegedly processes applications for student internships for "culinary, turf grass management and hospitality services" to the US, and "coaches student applicants to lie in their visa applications and provides them with fraudulent employment letter to be eligible for their internship visa."

The pair was placed under surveillance and were arrested upon their arrival at the airport from Palawan, the NBI said. — BM, GMA News