Authorities in the Philippines have been busily busting scam call centers following an executive order by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. that banned all Philippine offshore gaming operators (POGOs) last year. POGOs emerged in the early noughties as a way for Philippine businesses, often backed by Chinese investors, to profit from mainland China’s ban on gambling. Although they paid taxes, it is no surprise that call centers established to work around the gambling laws of foreign countries were also connected to crimes within the Philippines too, including scams and the trafficking of workers. POGOs previously could obtain licenses to conduct their business but the enforcement of the outright ban of all POGOs is now bringing the scale of criminal POGO activity to light.
131 arrests were made last week during a raid led by the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission (PAOCC) on a call center located on the 21st floor of a skyscraper in Makati, the financial heart of Metro Manila. Of those arrested, 35 were Filipinos and the rest were foreigners. The previous week saw a joint operation by the Bureau of Immigration (BI) and the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) that arrested 49 workers at a bogus marketing operation in Pasay (pictured). All of the suspects were foreign nationals.
In addition to the Filipinos, the arrested workers at the Makati office included citizens of Japan, Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Mongolia, Brazil, and St. Kitts and Nevis. The ringleaders of the Makati operation were said to be 16 Chinese nationals who were reportedly conducting a conference call as the raid began. The office was wired with a ‘kill switch’ that permitted the bosses to simultaneously wipe all the computers in the room. SMS blasters were also discovered in the office, as explained by PAOCC Executive Director Undersecretary Gilbert Cruz:
Yung mga text blasters ginagamit ‘yan sa scamming operation — ‘yung mga nagkakalat ng text blast na nagsasabi kung anong gagawin nila, ‘yung marketing scheme ng POGO operation
The text blasters are used in their scamming operation — these are devices that send text blasts to their victims detailing the POGO operation’s marketing scheme
POGOs and the supply of SMS blasters are both associated with the Chinese criminal underworld. Earlier this month two IMSI-catchers were confiscated from a former POGO guard who was arrested after he offered one of the devices for sale via social media. The price for one IMSI-catcher was advertised as PHP600,000 (USD10,500). Brigadier General Bernard Yang of the National Police Anti-Cybercrime Group said the suspect had obtained the radio devices from his former employer when the POGO was shut down.
Fewer details were provided about the individuals arrested in Pasay but they mostly appeared to be South Asian in appearance. Two of them were already wanted on other charges.
Among those arrested was a 29-year-old Bangladeshi male under a watchlist order for alleged involvement in illegal recruitment activities and a 25-year-old Pakistani male under an alert list order due to suspected financial fraud.
The crackdown on POGOs is welcome news but there is always the risk that criminals will simply relocate scam operations to other countries. BI Commissioner Joel Anthony Viado warned last week that a ‘whole of government’ approach is needed to curb trafficking that now runs in the opposite direction, with Filipinos working in scam compounds in Cambodia and elsewhere. The official BI announcement…
…raised the alarm over the increasing number of Filipino trafficking victims illegally departing the country through backdoor routes to work in ‘POGO-like’ companies abroad.
The announcement detailed the ordeal of three Filipinos who were…
…returned to the Philippines on March 16 from Phnom Penh, Cambodia, aboard a Philippine Airlines flight after being lured into working as love scammers.
They reportedly sought help from the Philippine embassy after experiencing physical assault and torture from their employers for more than 2 months.
…They disclosed that they exited the country illegally by taking a small boat from Jolo, Sulu to Sabah, Malaysia.
In Sabah, their passports were allegedly stamped with a fake Philippine departure stamp before they traveled by land to Kuala Lumpur, flew to Bangkok, Thailand, and finally arrived in Cambodia.
The Philippine News Agency release about the Makati raid is here and the one for the Pasay raid is here. Brief video footage of the Pasay raid can be seen here.
