Twenty Chinese workers were among the 100 charged out of the almost 650 persons arrested and rescued by government law enforcers during the raid of a Philippine Offshore Gaming Operator (POGO) in Pasay City this week, the Department of Justice said Friday.
Justice Undersecretary Nicholas Felix Ty said the charges were filed during the inquest proceedings done at Rivendell Global Support, Inc. at the SJ Mobile Building in Pasay City, where the raid took place.
Ty, who is in charge of the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking (IACAT) headed by the DOJ, could not say immediately what charges were filed against those subjected to inquest proceedings.
But he admitted that the charges were filed, and those charged were 20 Chinese nationals and more than 80 Filipinos.
Ty said that the government authorities conducted a raid Tuesday night, Aug. 1, against Rivendell where “around 650 individuals were found in the establishment.”
“Around 180 are foreign nationals and the majority of them are Chinese,” he said.
The DOJ official said that one of those arrested during the raid was a Filipino who was rescued from human trafficking abroad.
“We were saddened to know that one of those was a Filipino previously rescued in Myanmar but was found working in the POGO facility in Pasay,” he lamented.
He noted that the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) “provided the initial intelligence that we used to secure the search warrant.”
“We received information that this POGO is a registered service provider,” he said.
However, during the raid it was discovered that most of the rooms were engaged in online scams, he added.
“A few rooms were still engaged in illegal gambling,” he said.
“We suspect that these gambling rooms were presented whenever there is an inspection but this is just a small part of the operation,” he added.