At least 250 people came to the Mexico City International Airport (AICM) on Tuesday, September 21st, with the intention of traveling to Canada, but upon arriving at the terminal they discovered that the job offer they had been made was a fraud.
Each person had paid, on average, 5,000 pesos. They were told that it was an amount to cover the payment of procedures such as the COVID test and travel documents, including the Canadian work visa.
“There are people from various states such as Tlaxcala, Puebla, Veracruz, Mexico City, the State of Mexico, among others. I paid 1,000 pesos for a COVID test, 1,500 for passports and 1,300 more for biochemicals, “one of the affected people told El Financiero.
She explained that the original contact was through various means, including social media, in which a temporary job was offered in Canada in the agricultural, service and construction sectors.
They were summoned this Tuesday morning at terminal 1 of the AICM. The goal was to quarantine them for three days in a hotel in the terminal.
Once any COVID cases were ruled out, they would travel to Canada. They were told that the flight would leave on Friday and as of Saturday they would already be reporting to their work centers in Ottawa.
However, upon arriving at the air terminal, his contact Sergio Portillo Briones did not show up, so they began to ask at the hotel where they would supposedly spend the quarantine. It was then that they discovered it was a fraud.
“We regret the situation because it really was a dream to go to Canada. Here in the country things are not going well, I have already been out of work for several months and this was a hope of getting my family forward, ”said another of those affected.
The defrauded people requested the intervention of the authorities to locate Sergio Portillo Briones and answer for the fraud he committed, in this case for almost 1.2 million pesos.
“This happened to us and who knows how many more frauds this guy has committed. What I would ask the authorities is to issue a bulletin and arrest him, ”added one of the women who was also affected.
Among the defrauded are entire families who planned to travel to Canada in search of a better future.
Source: Financiero
