Job seekers who were promised steady work aboard yachts in the United Arab Emirates instead lost a combined P1.15 million to two women now facing criminal charges, authorities said following an entrapment operation in the capital’s business district.
The suspects, Dona Sabandal Navarro and Shiela Ayonayon, were taken into custody on July 24, 2026 in an operation carried out jointly by the Philippine National Police–Criminal Investigation and Detection Group’s Anti-Transnational Crime Unit and the Department of Migrant Workers. Officers moved in as the two accepted paperwork and collected money from people hoping to be sent abroad.
Investigators said 18 individuals had been drawn into the scheme, each applying for positions such as yacht cleaner, yacht steward, or housekeeper in the UAE. The pay dangled before them ran from P45,000 to P75,000 a month.
To lock in those jobs, applicants were told to hand over processing fees that varied widely from case to case, anywhere between P19,000 and P100,000. According to the CIDG, the 18 pooled and turned over a total of P1.15 million in the belief that deployment would follow.
Navarro presented herself to applicants as an operations manager for a firm based in Dubai, while Ayonayon claimed to be staff at a licensed recruitment agency. Neither claim held up. When the DMW ran checks, it found the two had no license or authority from the department to send Filipinos to work overseas.
The department’s verification went further. As the CIDG put it, “upon verification with the Migrant Workers Office in Dubai, it was confirmed that no job orders or employment opportunities existed for the positions being offered; and the suspects were neither licensed nor authorized to recruit or deploy overseas workers.”
During the operation, agents seized 31 sets of documents belonging to would-be overseas workers, evidence pointing to a pool of victims larger than those who came forward.
Both women are now answering complaints for violating the Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos Act of 1995, as amended, in connection with estafa under the Revised Penal Code. The charges carry the possibility of large-scale illegal recruitment counts given the number of people involved.
The DMW has urged anyone else who may have dealt with the pair to come forward through its reporting channels so complaints can be filed and free legal assistance arranged. Applicants, it added, should always confirm an agency’s standing on the department’s official list before parting with any money.
