22 August 2016•Update: 22 August 2016
By Ainur Rohmah
TUBAN, Indonesia
Indonesia’s government said Monday that it is seeking the repatriation of 177 nationals who were caught with Philippine passports at a Manila airport before boarding a flight to Saudi Arabia ahead of the Hajj pilgrimage.
Yasonna Laoly, minister of law and human rights, was quoted by kompas.com as saying, “we’re working on how to accomplish this [case] and bring them back to Indonesia. It's still in process.”
As the recipient of the largest Hajj quota, Indonesia -- the world’s most populous Muslim country, with a population of around 256 million -- sends around 200,000 pilgrims to Mecca and Medina every year for the largest annual gathering of people in the world.
Each Indonesian pilgrim must pay a deposit of around $2,500 and there are currently more than 2 million Indonesians on the waiting list, prompting some to seek alternatives to registering for the Muslim pilgrimage from the archipelago.
On Friday, the Philippines’ Bureau of Immigration revealed that the 177 Indonesians were carrying genuine Philippine passports believed to have been acquired through “fraudulent means” in exchange for $6,000-10,000 each.
Laoly said Monday that his ministry is cooperating with Indonesia’s foreign ministry to communicate with Philippine authorities regarding the repatriation of the pilgrims, who he said acquired the passports through a syndicate operating in the neighboring countries.
"So there is identity fraud. They used the identity of Philippines citizens. But that [fraud] is coordinated by the syndicate in the Philippines and Indonesia," he added.
According to the minister, the government also found indications of the involvement of some Indonesian immigration officers in the syndicate.
"We are checking the information. We are investigating some immigration offices," he said, without providing details about their alleged role.
Meanwhile, the foreign ministry's director of citizens and legal entities told Anadolu Agency that the 177 pilgrims -- including 100 women and 77 men -- came from various parts of Indonesia.
Around half of them, however, hailed from South Sulawesi province -- where residents experience the longest queue of up to 32 years.
"The majority of them come from South Sulawesi," said Lalu Muhammad Iqbal.
In June 2105, police arrested a syndicate in the province that allegedly provided fake Philippine passports for 80 million rupiah ($6,080).
The national police’s Criminal Investigation Unit is due to send a team to the Philippines as it seeks to uncover the parties that facilitated the 177 pilgrims’ trip.
"We want to know who are their recruiters, in [South Sulawesi capital] Makassar, Jakarta, so on. Are they [service bureau] officials or not," the unit’s director for general crimes, Brig. Gen. Agus Andrianto, told Anadolu Agency.
He said investigators would question the Indonesians as victims, and ensure they were accommodated at the Indonesian embassy rather than held in prison.
