Top illegal job recruiter has 134 arrest warrants

MANILA, Philippines - At least 276 Filipino individuals have a total of more than 20,000 unserved warrants of arrest for large-scale illegal recruitment, an official of the Task Force Against Illegal Recruiters (TFAIR) said Saturday.

Senior Superintendent Gilbert Sosa, TFAIR operations chief, identified the top suspect as Harleta Velasco, who has 134 arrest warrants for illegal recruitment and estafa (fraud).

And of the 276 suspects, 68 have double digit warrants of arrests, Sosa said in an interview on Vice President Noli De Castro’s radio program “Para Sa Iyo, Bayan."

De Castro, who is also head of the Task Force Against Illegal Recruitment, wanted all the suspects to be identified but in view of the long list, he had Sosa name only the top 10 for a start.

Sosa, however, ended up naming only nine, all of them women, with one suspect — Velasco — landing in the 1st and 7th place.

Joining Velasco on top of the list were Rosemarie Liwanag (82), Maricar Inovero (79), Corazon Ventura (48), Amelia Gabriel (29), Beverly Tuazon (27), Maria Harleta Velasco (27) – suspected to be the same recruiter with the most number of arrests— Aminola Camarudin (24), and Marissa Biyalat (24).

“Ang ginawa po namin ngayon, so nag-workshop kami, nanarrow down na po natin sa 276 [What we did was we did a workshop, we were able to narrow it down to 276]," said Sosa.

“Ito ho ay ang maraming warrant of arrests pero marami pa sila [There really are many warrants of arrests but there are more]," he said, adding that they obtained the list from the databases of the Philippine National Police (PNP) and the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), who in turn received it from the courts.

De Castro said while the suspects have yet to be convicted, the task force felt compelled to release their names so that aspiring OFWs would be forewarned.

“Layunin natin dito eh bigyan ng babala ang ating mga kababayan [We aim to warn our fellow Filipinos about them]," he said.

“Layunin natin na ang illegal recruiter ay ating mapigilan dito pa lamang [We want to stop the illegal recruiter while they’re still here]," said De Castro.

Sosa, who is from the PNP’s Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG), said they plan on coming up with a list for the most wanted persons in large-scale illegal recruitment and seek public help in rounding them up.

De Castro told the task force to go first after those with the most number of pending warrants to prevent them from victimizing more job seekers.

He noted that many of the cases were non-bailable, and yet the suspects are still scot-free, looking for more victims. - GMANews.TV

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