Manila, Philippines — Philippine police, backed by commandos, carried out massive raids on Tuesday and said they rescued more than 2,700 workers from China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia and more than a dozen other countries who were allegedly lured into fraudulent online gaming sites and other was tricked into working for cybercrime groups. ,
The number of human trafficking victims rescued from seven buildings in metropolitan Manila’s Las Pinas city and the scale of the nighttime police raid were the largest so far this year and signaled how the Philippines has become a major base of operations for the cybercrime syndicate Is.
Cybercrime scams have become a major issue in Asia and there have been reports of people from the region and beyond being lured into taking jobs in conflict-torn countries such as Myanmar and Cambodia. However, many of these workers find themselves trapped in virtual slavery and forced to participate in scams that target people on the Internet.
In May, leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations agreed at a summit in Indonesia to tighten border controls and law enforcement and expand public education to fight criminal syndicates that drive workers to other countries. where they are forced to participate in online fraud.
Brig. Police armed with warrants raided and searched buildings in Las Pinas around midnight and rescued 1,534 Filipinos and 1,190 foreigners from at least 17 countries, said Gen. Sidney Hernia, head of the national Philippine police’s anti-cybercrime unit. In which 604 were Chinese, 183 were Vietnamese. , 137 Indonesian, 134 Malaysian and 81 Thai. There were also people from Myanmar, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, Nigeria and Taiwan.
It was not immediately clear how many suspected leaders of the syndicate were arrested.
In May, police raided another suspected cybercrime base at Clark Freeport in the city of Mabalacat in Pampanga province, north of Manila, where they detained nearly 1,400 Filipino and foreign workers for allegedly committing cryptocurrency scams. was forced, police said.
Some workers told investigators that when they tried to quit they were forced to pay huge sums for unexplained reasons or feared they would be sold to other syndicates, police said, adding that the workers were allegedly It was also forced to pay a fine for the violation. Work.
Workers were lured in Facebook ads offering high wages and ideal working conditions, authorities said, but it was later revealed that these promises were a hoax.
Muhammad Mahfud, the Indonesian minister who deals with political, legal and security issues, told reporters in May that Indonesia and other countries in the region have found it difficult to work with Myanmar on cybercrime and its victims.
He said ASEAN needed to make progress on a long-proposed regional extradition treaty that would help authorities more quickly prosecute criminals and prevent a further increase in cybercrime.
