

Sydney Hernia, who heads the national Philippine police’s anti-cybercrime unit, said police armed with warrants raided and searched the buildings around midnight in Las Pinas and rescued 1,534 Filipinos and 1,190 foreigners from at least 17 countries, including 604 Chinese, 183 Vietnamese, 137 Indonesians, 134 Malaysians and 81 Thais. In May, leaders from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations agreed in a summit in Indonesia to tighten border controls and law enforcement and broaden public education to fight criminal syndicates that traffic workers to other nations, where they are made to participate in online fraud.īrig. However, many of these workers find themselves trapped in virtual slavery and forced to participate in scams targeting people over the internet. The number of human trafficking victims rescued from seven buildings in Las Pinas city in metropolitan Manila and the scale of the nighttime police raid were the largest so far this year and indicated how the Philippines has become a key base of operations for cybercrime syndicates.Ĭybercrime scams have become a major issue in Asia with reports of people from the region and beyond being lured into taking jobs in countries like strife-torn Myanmar and Cambodia. MANILA, Philippines (AP) - Philippine police backed by commandos staged a massive raid on Tuesday and said they rescued more than 2,700 workers from China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia and more than a dozen other countries who were allegedly swindled into working for fraudulent online gaming sites and other cybercrime groups.
