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Filipina who signed on as fake employer gets 3 months’ jail

31 December 2024

 

Foreign domestic helper's visa is shown in passport

A Filipina who signed a fake work contract as employer to enable another Filipina to get a domestic helper’s visa, was jailed for three months today in the latest sentencing for those involved in a conspiracy to defraud the Immigration Department.

Almira Narag-Chow, 51 years old who worked as a cleaner earning $11,000 a month, pleaded guilty at Shatin court last March 26, but her sentencing was put off to today to allow her to cooperate with government investigators’ inquiry into similar cases.

Chow, who was arrested in her house, agreed with the police complaint that she signed the fake contract with Aprilyn Tupas, aged 42, on a promise she would be paid $7,000. Her co-conspirators Tupas and agent Gina Villareal had earlier been jailed for their roles in the conspiracy.

But Chow said she received only $2,000 from the transaction, paid to her by a Villareal, who arranged for the processing of Tupas’ employment visa.

PINDUTIN PARA SA DETALYE

She said Villareal and another Filipino, Homer Herrera, had promised that she would be paid an additional $5,000 once the visa was approved. But both co-conspirators did not reappear, and Tupas never worked for her.

The complaint alleged that between 2021 and Sept. 8, 2023, Chow and the other three conspired to “defraud the Director of Immigration … and his officers by dishonetly and falsely representing… that Tupas, Aprilyn Tario’s remaining in Hong Kong was for the purpose of taking up employment…”

It said their action induced the officers “to act contrary to their public duty” to grant Tupas permission to remain in Hong Kong, “which they would not otherwise have granted.”


Basahin ang detalye!

Tupas, her supposed helper, pleaded guilty at Shatin Court last Oct. 17 to lying to an Immigration officer that she would work for Chow, resulting in her being granted permission to stay and work in Hong Kong, and was jailed for four months.

She admitted the charge by the Immigration Department that she conspired with Chow, and agents Villareal and Herrera in submitting false documents between an unknown day in 2021 and on June 1, 2023.

Villareal, 52 and a holder of a recognizance form to serve as her identification document, was jailed for 10 months last Nov. 21 for two counts of conspiracy to defraud the Immigration Department.

Herrera, a 40-year-old asylum seeker, is facing 25 charges at District Court of defrauding the Immigration Department by presenting fake employment contracts to enable his clients to get domestic helper visas.

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