20:43, 28/06/2023
With the help of commandos, Philippine police have rescued more than 2,700 workers from over 10 countries who were tricked into working for illegal online gaming sites and other cybercrime groups.
AP reported that the Philippine police raid took place in Las Pinas city in the Manila metropolitan area on June 27.
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Armed police raided and searched seven buildings in Las Pinas around midnight, said Brigadier General Sydney Hernia, head of the Philippine National Police’s cybercrime unit. They rescued 1,534 Filipinos and 1,190 foreigners from at least 17 countries, including 604 Chinese, 183 Vietnamese, 137 Indonesians, 134 Malaysians and 81 Thais. Some of the workers were from Myanmar, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, Nigeria and Taiwan.
It is not yet clear how many suspected leaders of this human trafficking organization have been arrested by Philippine authorities.
The number of victims rescued in Las Pinas as well as the scale of the raid were the largest so far this year, showing that the Philippines has become a base of operations for cybercrime gangs.
Online fraud has become a serious problem in Asia. According to reports, many workers from within and outside the region have been lured to work in countries with the promise of an ideal working environment and attractive salaries on Facebook. However, many of them later find themselves enslaved by online criminal gangs and forced to participate in scams.
At a summit in Indonesia in May, leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) agreed to tighten border controls and law enforcement, and increase public awareness to combat criminal gangs that smuggle workers to other countries and force them into online scams.
That same month, Philippine police raided another cybercrime operation at Clark Port in Mabalacat City, Pampanga Province, north of the capital Manila. Authorities arrested nearly 1,400 Filipino and foreign workers accused of running cryptocurrency scams.
Some workers told investigators that when they tried to quit their jobs, they were forced by criminals to pay large sums of money for unclear reasons. They were also forced to pay fines for violating traffickers’ workplace rules. These workers also feared they would be sold to other criminal gangs.
Indonesia and other countries in the region are struggling to coordinate with Myanmar to tackle cybercrime, according to Indonesian Security Minister Mohammad Mahfud. Mahfud wants ASEAN to make progress on a regional extradition treaty that would help authorities prosecute criminals more quickly and prevent further escalation of online crimes.
According to Vietnamnet
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