OFWs cautioned vs carrying parcels for others

Filipinos working overseas should always be careful in choosing parcels that some people ask them to bring to foreign destinations, the Philippine National Police (PNP) said Monday.

Quoting a letter of Philippine Ambassador to China Sonia Brady to the Department of Foreign Affairs, the PNP said a number of Filipinos have already fallen victims to illegal drug syndicates who use OFWs as couriers of illegal drugs to China.

"The arrest of nine Filipinas in a span of three weeks in Guangdong province and Beijing is nothing less than alarming," the PNP Directorate for Intelligence quoted Brady as saying in her letter.

For the period February 2007 until January 2008, a total of 22 arrests have been made in China for alleged drug smuggling involving female OFWs, the PNP said.

The suspects claimed that they agreed to carry the parcels of friends whom they meet in transit points in another country in exchange for free tickets to China and a payment upon delivery of said parcels to a contact in China, the PNP added.

For this reason, Brady warned Filipinos "not to allow themselves to be used as drug couriers by unscrupulous 'friends' who work for drug syndicates in China."

PNP spokesman Senior Superintendent Nicanor Bartolome said OFWs must resist all forms of offer from any person to carry parcels for them unless they personally packed said parcels to know its contents. - GMANews.TV

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