Chinese fugitive barred at NAIA

Bureau of Immigration (BI) officers at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) have barred from entering the country a Chinese fugitive wanted in Beijing for involvement in economic crimes.

BI-Interpol chief lawyer Rommel Tacorda said 42-year-old Wu Chuqui was intercepted Wednesday afternoon at the NAIA 3 terminal upon his arrival aboard a Cathay Pacific flight from Hongkong.

Tacorda said that Wu, who is in the Interpol’s red notice list of wanted fugitives, was immediately excluded and booked on the first available Cathay Pacific flight back to Hong Kong where he was later arrested by Chinese authorities.

“We informed our Chinese counterparts about the interception, so they waited for him and took him into custody upon alighting from his plane,” he said.

Tacorda said Wu is wanted for money laundering in an illegal business operation, and is subject of an arrest warrant issued last year by the Public Security Bureau in Shenzhen, Shantou, China.

Tacorda said that, if convicted, Wu faces the maximum penalty of 15 years of imprisonment for engaging in illegal business activities.

It was learned that Wu has been on the Interpol’s red notice list of wanted foreign fugitives since August last year.

The BI maintains a database of foreigners with Interpol derogatory records, thus they are immediately detected or identified when they arrive in the country.

Tacorda shared that the database is continuously updated as it is interlinked with the network of Interpol’s National Central Bureau in Manila.

“Our immigration officers can immediately intercept foreigners wanted by the Interpol because of our access to the Interpol database, one swipe in our passport scanners will immediately reveal a hit,” he added.