Two foreign fugitives wanted in their countries for money laundering and cyber-related crimes have been arrested in Makati City and Paranaque City, the Bureau of Immigration (BI) said on Monday, March 11.

Immigration Commissioner Norman Tansingo identified the two foreigners as Taiwanese Li Ming Hsju, 44, and South Korean Joo Han Wong, 39, who were arrested last March 5 and 6, respectively.

Tansingco said: “Li and Joo will be deported to their home countries where they are wanted by authorities to stand trial for serious crimes. They will also be included in the BI blacklist to prevent them from re-entering the Philippines."

In a statement, the BI said the two arrested foreigners "are already undocumented aliens as their passports were already revoked by their respective governments.” 

It said “Liu is wanted in Taiwan due to an arrest warrant that was issued against him by the Taichung district prosecutor’s office for allegedly violating his country’s money laundering act.”

“Prosecutors alleged that Liu is a ranking of member of a syndicate involved in large-scale money laundering since last year when it operated multiple scamming centers in Taiwan and abroad that defrauded victims of more than P78 billion pesos through its fraudulent schemes,” it also said. 

On the other hand, the BI said “the South Korean became subject of an Interpol red notice after the Seoul Dongbu district court issued a warrant for his arrest based on charges that he engaged in cybercrime activities.”

 “Joo allegedly conspired with other suspects in developing a computer  program that was used to hack and illegally obtain personal information from over 66,500 personal messaging application accounts,” it said.

“The victims' data were eventually sold to a third party which used it to employ voice phishing and other telecom fraud activities on many victims,” it added. 

Liu and Joo are now detained the BI’s detention facility in Taguig City pending their deportation.