Alleged recruiter of Joanna Demafelis voluntarily surrenders in Iloilo

The alleged recruiter of overseas Filipino worker Joanna Demafelis voluntarily surrendered to authorities two days after the Philippine National Police (PNP) claimed to have leads on her location.

Agnes Tuballes from Iloilo City surrendered, a source from the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) said, according to a report by Rod Vega on Dobol B sa News TV on Thursday.

Tuballes turned herself in to clear her name after she was repeatedly named as the recruiter who helped deploy Demafelis to Kuwait.

She is now in the custody of the PNP-CIDG.

No other details on the case have been released.

The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) is awaiting formal confirmation regarding the reported arrest of Demafelis' employers Nader Essam Assaf, a Lebanese man, and his wife Mona Hassoun, a Syrian woman.

A deployment ban on first-time OFWs was imposed after the discovery of Demafelis' body inside a freezer in an apartment in Kuwait abandoned by her employers in November 2016. —Rie Takumi/KG, GMA News