Philippines authorities say they rescued more than 1,000 human trafficking victims from across Asia during a raid Thursday night and Friday.
Police say the victims were forced to work up to 18 hours a day perpetrating cryptocurrency scams. It allegedly happened in a compound in Mabalacat, about a two-hour drive from the country's capital, Manila.
"They met the people they scammed on Facebook and dating apps," Captain Michelle Sabino of the Philippine National Police Anti-Cybercrime Group told VOA. "They would pretend to fall in love with them and get their money."
Police say the trafficking victims came from Vietnam, China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Nepal, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand and Taiwan.
"They were lured by social media posts promising good-paying jobs only to get trapped in these compounds that had armed guards to keep them from leaving," Sabino said, adding that the criminals who ran the scam center are from China.
Philippines authorities were tipped off about the compound by officials in Indonesia, who received desperate messages for help from Indonesians trapped inside.
Illicit operations like this are called online "fraud factories" and have been traced to several countries in Southeast Asia, including Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia. Experts say this is a multibillion-dollar industry with tens of thousands of human trafficking victims.
The victims often are university educated, white-collar workers with social media skills. Some lost their jobs during the pandemic and are desperate for work. There's huge demand for scammers who can speak English and/or Chinese because those are two widely spoken languages, the Global Anti-Scam Organization told VOA.
While the fraud factories are often in remote areas, a recent senate hearing in the Philippines revealed that some are in major urban centers.
VOA's prior reporting on this issue showed how in some fraud factories, poor performers are beaten and even killed — although Sabino told VOA at this stage there's no evidence that this type of violence took place at the compound in Mabalacat.
Victims can often buy their way out of the scam centers but that typically costs tens of thousands of dollars, which is far more than most families in Southeast Asia can afford.
