reader Posted March 15 Posted March 15 From VN Express / AFP Hundreds of people forced to work in an online scam center in the Philippines were rescued in a raid on Thursday that also saw eight suspects arrested, according to police. Acting on a tip from a Vietnamese man who alleged to have escaped the sprawling compound north of capital Manila, police said they unmasked an operation where suspected victims of human trafficking were forced into conducting various online scams. "The rescued workers told us (the company) engages in love scams, romance scam, cryptocurrency scams and other scam activities," said Gilberto Cruz, executive director of the crime task force that led the pre-dawn raid. "The victims were controlled by having their passports confiscated so they were unable to leave." Police found 432 Chinese nationals, 371 Filipinos, 57 Vietnamese, eight Malaysians, three Taiwanese, two Indonesians and two Rwandans at the site. Victims have reported traveling across the region, often on the pretense of romance or high-paying jobs but finding themselves forced instead to cajole people into plowing money into fake investment platforms and other ruses. The Philippines police said a Malaysian worker had also sought help after allegedly being held against his will at the same address in Bamban. At the center, a complex of 36 office buildings and dormitories, the victims were engaged in various online scams under threat of physical harm or other punishment, the authorities said. "The (online gaming) workers who failed to achieve their quota... were physically harmed, deprived of sleep or locked up inside their rooms," Cruz said. TMax 1 Quote
