SOURCE: Hundreds rescued from love scam centre in the Philippines - BBC News
- South East Asia has become a hub for scam centres where the scammers themselves are often entrapped and forced into criminal activity.
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SUMMARY:
→ The now-raided centre, which was masquerading as an online gambling firm and is about 100km north of Manila, on Thursday was sparked by a tip-off from a Vietnamese man who managed to flee the scam centre last month Police said as well as confirming they have rescued 383 Filipinos, 202 Chinese and 73 other foreign nationals. Three shotguns, a 9mm pistol, two .38 calibre revolvers, and 42 rounds of live ammunition were seized. Those trapped in the Bamban centre were forced to send “sweet nothings” to their victims, many of whom were Chinese, Mr Casio said - they would check in on their recipients with questions about their day and if and what they had eaten for their last meal. They would also send photos of themselves to cultivate the relationship.
→ The Vietnamese man, who in his 30s, arrived in the Philippines in January this year, after being offered what he was told would be a chef’s job, said Winston Casio, spokesman for the presidential commission against organised crime. wall, crossing a river, and seeking refuge at a farm. The farm owner then reported it to the police. There were signs of torture on the man, including scars and marks from electrocution, said Mr Casio, whose team visited the man early this month. Mr Casio added that several others have tried to escape but were always caught.
→ Young and tech-savvy victims are often lured into running these illegal operations, which range from money laundering and crypto fraud to so-called love scams. The latter are also known as “pig butchering” scams, named after the farming practice of fattening pigs before slaughtering them. These typically start with the scammer adopting a fake identity to gain their victim’s affection and trust - and then using the illusion of a romantic or intimate relationship to manipulate or steal from the victim. This often happens by persuading them to invest in fake schemes or businesses.
→ In May last year, Philippine authorities rescued more than 1,000 people who were held captive and forced to run online scams inside a freeport zone in Clark, a city also north of Manila - in what remains its biggest bust to date. A UN report last August estimated that hundreds of thousands of people from around the world have been trafficked to Southeast Asia to run online scams. Governments across Asia, from Indonesia to Taiwan, have expressed alarm at the rise in these scam centres. Foreign embassies in countries like Cambodia and Thailand, for example, have issued warnings to their citizens to beware of being lured into scam centres. China issued public rewards for warlords who were running scam centres across the border in Myanmar - these centres were run by Chinese mafia families and targeted Chinese nationals. Many of those arrested have been handed over to China in recent months.