MORE than 800 individuals were apprehended by authorities following a raid on a Philippine Offshore Gaming Operator (POGO) hub in Tarlac.
Acting on a search warrant issued by Bulacan Executive Judge Hermenegildo Dumlao, a joint force comprising the Philippine Anti-Organized Crime Commission (PAOCC), Philippine National Police (PNP), and Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) entered the compound of Zuan Yuan Technology Inc. in Barangay Anupul, Bamban, Tarlac, at 1:30 in the morning on Wednesday.
The compound consisted of around 40 buildings spanning ten hectares.
According to Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission or PAOCC Executive Director Usec. Gilbert Cruz, authorities raided the expansive POGO hub after receiving complaints from a Vietnamese national who escaped from the facility on February 28.
Additionally, a Malaysian national sought PAOCC’s assistance, claiming to have been forcibly confined in the compound.
“Why did we conduct a raid here in Tarlac in Bamban? It all started with the Vietnamese who we rescued, and then after rescuing the Vietnamese, we obtained a statement from him. It turned out he was also a victim of the violence in this POGO,” Usec. Gilbert Cruz, Executive Director, PAOCC stated.
“After a few days of taking his statement, the Malaysian Embassy wrote to us, saying that the same modus operandi happened to their fellow Malaysian citizen too,” he added.
Based on the initial investigation results of the authorities in the said compound, Usec. Cruz said that the victims, all foreigners, were forced to work there.
He also mentioned that the so-called enforcers confiscated their passports to control them and prevent them from leaving the POGO hub.
“They took away their passports to control them, to have leverage so they couldn’t leave,” Cruz added.
“They really deprived them of sleep and locked them in a room to force them to pay their debt or to comply with the whims of their enforcers,” he added.
Various scams were also being conducted in the compound.
“For now, the illegal activities they’re doing, like these workers, they allow them to work without proper documents because the foreigners we saw inside had no passports,” he stated.
“The computers there— we asked the ones we rescued, it turned out there’s a love scam inside, there’s a romance scam, cryptocurrency scams, and other scam activities in this POGO hub,” he said.
They also found signs of torture on some of the victims.
“We have a victim with evident signs of torture on the body, there are victims of torture here,” Cruz added.
Meanwhile, out of the total number of individuals apprehended working in the mentioned POGO Hub, 383 were Filipinos, while 275 were Foreign Nationals composed of 202 Chinese nationals, 13 Malaysians, 54 Vietnamese nationals, 1 Taiwanese national, 2 Indonesians, 2 Rwandans, and 1 Kyrgyzstan.
However, PAOCC clarified that the apprehended Filipinos were not involved in the illegal activities of the said POGO.
“Some of them are security guards providing security at the POGO, some are doing laundry, and some are cooking in the kitchen, so most of them are Filipinos,” Cruz said.
The authorities will file cases of human trafficking and serious illegal detention against the 8 suspects apprehended while also considering the possibility of more victims coming forward.
“We will file cases of human trafficking and serious illegal detention. Actually, we already identified those victims and those perpetrators,” Cruz said.
“We have identified 8 suspects and we’re still looking for more victims to come out to also identify who else is involved in hurting them and detaining them inside these POGO hubs,” Cruz added.
Philippine authorities are currently coordinating with the Chinese embassy to identify the eight suspects who are now in the custody of the inter-agency task force.
PAOCC will also apply for a new search warrant to examine the computers used for deception.
