SEVENTY-FIVE foreigners—all Chinese nationals—were deported on September 22 due to their alleged involvement in online scams, the Bureau of Immigration (BI) said Sunday.

The BI said the deportees, who took a flight bound for Nanning in China’s Guangxi region, were part of the first batch of foreign nationals expelled from the Philippines after their alleged involvement in love scams and cryptocurrency scams targeting Westerners.

The 75 Chinese nationals were part of the group arrested in an operation led by the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking (IACAT) and the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission (PAOCC) against SA Rivendell Global Gaming Corporation, located in Pasay City.

They were later charged by the BI for undesirability after being identified as part of a scam syndicate.

”As a consequence of the deportation, all deportees have been included in the BI’s blacklist, effectively barring them from returning to the Philippines,” the BI said. 

Initially 76, He Zeng Ming, one of the deportees, was offloaded by the airline because of his health after allegedly experiencing chest symptoms.