Thai, Philippine police warn against trafficking scheme using fake missionaries, pilgrims

The Thai and Philippine police have exposed a human trafficking scheme involving people posing as religious missionaries or pilgrims.

The illegal phenomenon was uncovered by the two nations’ police forces after a series of investigations and wiretaps.

On April 1, three individuals who claimed to be full-time volunteer missionaries were intercepted by the Bureau of Immigration at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Manila, Philippines.

The group, all women aged 23, 25, and 50, were questioned due to discrepancies in their documents.

They attempted to board a flight bound for Singapore with a stopover in Thailand.

“The two victims confessed they were not part of a missionary group but licensed teachers recruited for illegal employment at a school in Thailand,” said the immigration agency in a media release.

They later admitted that they were recruited by the older woman they were traveling with, who said she was a preacher and founder of a religious organization.

The recruiter’s records also revealed that she had done the same scheme with another group who claimed to be her church companions but had not returned to the Philippines.

After verifying that she was not licensed nor authorized to recruit people for overseas employment with the Department of Migrant Workers, she was arrested on April 3.

Philippine immigration chief Joel Anthony Viado said that this religious cover is similar to the common “Bitbit” scheme, where victims are trafficked to other countries without their knowledge due to false recruitment information.

Similar cases have also happened in the Philippines recently. In 2011, six Filipinas pretending to be Catholic nuns were questioned by the immigration agency and later admitted they were traveling illegally to work in Lebanon.

In 2023, authorities discovered another group of six Filipinos posing as pilgrims traveling to the Holy Land.

In their 2024 year-end report, the Philippine Bureau of Immigration reported a total of 998 victims of human trafficking, which included fake missionaries and pilgrimages.

They said that victims are often baited by social media scams and end up being employed in slave labor in Thailand, Cambodia, and Myanmar.

Meanwhile, nuns in Thailand have dedicated themselves to the fight against human trafficking.

According to Rome-based Agenzia Fides, Sister Maria Agnes Buasap of the Hospitaller Sisters of Saint Paul of Chartres promotes awareness about this alarming issue.

As coordinator of the Talitha Kum Thailand network, she has been involved in the reception and reintegration of human trafficking victims.