MANILA, Philippines - The Bureau of Immigration (BI) has deported an American national wanted by South Korean authorities for fraud.
Dario Sarmiento Tomas, 52, was deported at the request of the South Korean embassy in Manila, which informed the Philippine government about an arrest warrant against the American, BI officer-in-charge Ronaldo Ledesma said in a press statement Sunday.
Tomas was deported last November 11 via a Philippine Airlines flight to Busan, South Korea, on the strength of a warrant of deportation issued by Ledesma and a summary deportation order signed by the bureau's board of commissioners.
Tomas was charged with fraud before the eastern division of the district court in Busan for swindling a Korean woman named Im Hyeg-yeong and her mother, Lee Bong-sook, of some KRW 222 million or about US $82,000.
Tomas allegedly induced the victims to give him the money on the promise that he would open a computer school business in the Philippines.
He fled to the Philippines and never returned to Korea after he received the money in 2007 and 2008.
Tomas was a member of the administrative and technical staff of the US Customs and Border Protection Service of the US Department of Homeland Security based in Busan at the time.
Lawyer Faizal Hussin, BI intelligence chief, said his men picked up Tomas at the National Bureau of Investigation headquarters where he was detained pursuant to a provisional arrest warrant issued by the Manila Regional Trial Court.
The Manila court issued the warrant in connection with an extradition case against Tomas that was later withdrawn by the Korean government to pave the way for the fugitive's deportatio
