190 Chinese workers among 250 detained in Philippine scam farm raid

Philippine authorities have detained more than 250 people, most of them Chinese, in a raid on a suspected online scam farm in Manila, law enforcement officials said on Friday.

Police and other authorities raided the office building late Thursday to find staff with hundreds of phones, computers, and preregistered international and local SIM cards, the Presidential Anti-Organised Crime Commission said.

“These are red flags of love scamming that victimises foreign nationals,” the commission said in a statement, referring to schemes in which scammers pretend to have romantic feelings for their victims to earn their trust and eventually steal their money.

International concern has been growing over similar scam farms in Asia, often staffed by victims of trafficking who were tricked or coerced into promoting bogus cryptocurrency investments and other cons.

In July, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr outlawed all forms of offshore gaming operators, including internet gaming licence holders, after the gambling industry was found to be linked to financial scams, kidnapping, prostitution, human trafficking, torture and murder.

Thousands of foreign workers at the outlawed firms were given two months to leave the Philippines.