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The Philippine Embassy in London has reported to the Department of
Foreign Affairs that prospective Filipino migrant workers to the
United Kingdom continue to be victims of internet scams operated
from that country.
Said Amb. Edgardo Espiritu, criminal syndicates
normally claim to be officials from the British Border and
Immigration Agency (BIA), a unit of the British Home Office that
oversees the management of migration to the United Kingdom.
The criminal syndicates carry the official
address of the BIA in their internal communications, but use email
addresses obtained from commercial internet and email service
providers.
Payment for their service is then required to be
coursed through legitimate commercial money remittance service
providers which operate from many cities in the Philippines. Other
criminal syndicates use the names of other British or Filipino
government agencies in their fraudulent activities.
Filipino workers who have received invitation to
work in the United Kingdom through the Internet are advised to
consult with the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration to
verify if the recruitment agency is licensed to deploy workers to
the United Kingdom.
If payment is being required before deployment,
the public is advised to consider the transaction as suspicious and
discontinue dealing with the recruiter.
There are some 200,000 Filipinos in the United
Kingdom, many of whom are employed as nurses or caregivers in the
British national health system.
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