A Bureau of Immigration (BI) officer and three other persons have been charged criminally before the Pampanga provincial prosecutor’s office for their alleged human trafficking schemes that lured Filipinos to false promises of work as call center agents in Cambodia. Instead of call center agents, those victimized by the group were forced to work in Cambodia as “crypto-currency scammers,” the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) said. Those charged by the NBI were identified as immigration officer Alma Grave Ambrocio David, John Paul Angelico Tan Sanchez who was a former job order employee of the BI, Rachel Almendra Luna who is also known as Kate, and Princess Batac Guerrero who is also known as Hannie. Aside from human trafficking, they were charged with illegal recruitment, large scale estafa, and graft and corrupt practices, the NBI said in a statement issued on Tuesday, March 28. The NBI said the four respondents were accused of “recruiting and facilitating the travel of the six (6) victims who were supposed to travel to Cambodia as ‘call center agents’ via Clark International Airport on January 15, 2023.” It said: “Investigation disclosed that victims were recruited to work as ‘call center agents’ in Cambodia by Rachel Almendra Luna a.k.a. Kate promising a salary of $800-$900 monthly, while a certain Princess Batac Guerrero a.k.a. Hannie facilitated the processing of their travel documents and escorted them inside the airport during their supposed flight. Guerrero also coached them on what to do at the Immigration Counter.” “Another victim disclosed that Guerrero was allegedly receiving instructions from Mr. John Paul Angelico Tan Sanchez, IO David’s live-in partner and a Job Order employee of the Bureau of Immigration. Victims easily passed the primary inspection without any questions from IO David. However, upon reaching the boarding gate, they were intercepted by the Travel Control and Enforcement Unit (TCEU) members of the Bureau of Immigration who were then conducting a redundancy check or secondary random inspection and were eventually offloaded,” it also said. Also, in filing the charges, the NBI said it received a certification from the Department of Migrant Workers (DMW) that shows that Guerrero and Luna are “not licensed or authorized by the government to recruit Filipino workers for overseas employment.” At the same time, the NBI said it learned that Hong Fa International Company, the Cambodia-based company that was supposed to hire the six victims, is “allegedly engaged in a crypto-currency scam employing Filipinos as scammers.” It noted that the three Filipino victims employed by the company were repatriated last Feb. 25. “According to these victims, they were promised to work as ‘sales agent’ but they were instead exploited to work as ‘scammers’,” it said. “Thereat, their passports were confiscated by their Chinese employer and the supposed salaries were not given,” it added.