ORION, BATAAN – The Coast Guard stopped a cruise ship from sailing off from the Port of Orion on Monday (July 2), allowing the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) to rescue 139 alleged victims of human trafficking.

Lt. Carlos V. Carlos, Bataan Coast Guard commander, said the 139 Filipinos were on board the ship, “Forever Lucky,” which was headed for Micronesia.

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NBI agents began investigating the passengers on Tuesday, and confirmed that the Filipinos were illegally recruited for jobs in Guam.

The ship was initially delayed for failing to produce the proper travel documents, Carlos said.

It had been anchored at the port for a month, and was reportedly leased by a job recruiter in Olongapo City, Carlos said. The alleged recruiter, Johnny Cabrera, will be charged with illegal recruitment by the NBI in Manila.

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MOST READ </s> JAKARTA, Indonesia — Indonesia’s navy has seized a fishing boat carrying 20 crewmembers, including 14 Indonesians believed to be trafficking victims who were forced to work for years without pay, officials said Monday.

Maritime and Fisheries Minister Susi Pudjiastuti said a navy ship intercepted the STS-50 about 60 miles (95 kilometres) from Weh Island in Aceh province last Friday, a day after a tip from Interpol saying the vessel was heading to Indonesian waters.

Pudjiastuti said the boat was carrying six Russians, including the captain, and 14 Indonesians.

“The STS-50 has allegedly committed an organized transnational crime,” Pudjiastuti said.

She said the boat is believed to have falsified its identity many times and used the flags of eight different countries, including Japan, South Korea, Sierra Leone, Cambodia and Micronesia, to facilitate illegal fishing in the waters of many nations.

The boat had earlier been seized by China but managed to escape, and was later captured in Mozambique’s Port of Maputo before fleeing again, Pudjiastuti said.

Indonesian navy deputy chief Achmad Taufiqoerrochman said there are strong indications that the Indonesians on board are victims of trafficking who were forced to work at sea for years without pay.

“Suspicions of trafficking arose when we caught it without valid documents,” Taufiqoerrochman said. “We are still investigating this case comprehensively.”

He said the boat was equipped with 600 sets of gill nets, each about 50 metres (55 yards) long, that can sweep up to 30 square kilometres (12 square miles) of ocean. </s> The Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS) ship MV Phoenix sails out of Valletta’s Grand Harbour, Malta, May 2, 2015. ― Reuters picROME, April 23 — An Italian prosecutor claims charity boats rescuing migrants in the Mediterranean are in direct contact with people traffickers in Libya, reigniting a bitter row over what the aid groups defend as vital, life-saving operations.

In an interview with Italian daily La Stampa, Sicily-based prosecutor Carmelo Zuccaro made his most specific claims yet over NGO activities off Libya, which the EU border agency Frontex recently described as tantamout to providing a “taxi” service to Europe.

Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) active in the rescue effort include long-established groups such as Doctors without Borders and Save the Children, and smaller, newer operations such as the Malta-based MOAS.

They have all dismissed suggestions of de facto collusion with traffickers as a baseless slur on volunteer crews whose only mission is to save lives in the absence of EU governments acting effectively to do so.

Over 1,000 migrants are feared to have died in waters between Libya and Italy so far this year, according to the UN refugee agency. Nearly 37,000 have been rescued and brought to Italy.

“We have evidence that there are direct contacts between certain NGOs and people traffickers in Libya,” Zuccaro was quoted as saying by La Stampa.

“We do not yet know if and how we could use this evidence in court, but we are quite certain about what we say; telephone calls from Libya to certain NGOs, lamps that illuminate the route to these organisations’ boats, boats that suddenly turn off their (locating) transponders, are ascertained facts.”

Zuccaro is the head of a five-strong pool of prosecutors in charge of investigating all the legal aspects of the migrant crisis, from trafficking to illegal exploitation of migrant labour on Italian farms and rackets in the provision of reception facilities.

La Stampa reported that prosecutors were looking into whether some of the newly-established NGOs involved in rescue operations may be financed by the traffickers themselves as a way of making it easier to guarantee their human cargoes would get to Italy.

The organisations involved have all dismissed the charges against them and expressed concern that they are being targeted by an orchestrated smear campaign.

One group, SOS Mediterranee, told AFP last week it had “never, not once” been put in touch with a migrant boat via smugglers. — AFP </s> Two Filipino sailors have been rescued from a distressed South Korean freighter with 24 crew on board that had apparently sunk in the Atlantic Ocean, the Uruguayan navy said.

Four merchant ships in the area recovered three rafts, and rescued the two Filipino crew members on Saturday, said Gaston Jaunsolo, a spokesman for the navy.

The crew of the Stella Daisy, a Very Large Ore Carrier (VLOC) with a capacity of more than 260,000 tonnes, comprised 16 Filipinos and eight Koreans.

The search for the others continued.

The ship had issued an emergency call on Friday shortly before noon (local time), saying it was taking on water, according to the navy.

Because the ship was far off the Uruguayan coast — some 3,700 kilometers, from Montevideo — the navy organised a search by four merchant ships in the area, Jaunsolo told AFP in Montevideo.

He said the first ships to reach the scene had detected a “strong smell of fuel” and spotted debris, “an indication that the damaged ship had sunk,” a statement from the navy said.

The ship, which is flagged in the Marshall Islands, had departed from a port in Brazil. Its intended destination was not immediately clear.

Brazil is sending an aircraft to assist in the search, officials said.

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The Bataan Coast Guard detains cruise ship MV Forever Lucky on suspicion of involvement in human trafficking. The National Bureau of Investigation rescues 139 alleged victims from the vessel and charges Johnny Cabrera, the alleged lessor of the ship.