Bureau of Immigration (BI) officers at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) have intercepted six Filipinos who were about to leave ostensibly to work in a scam hub in Cambodia linked to a former Philippine Offshore Gaming Operator (POGO) employee.
The group actually consisted of three men and four women who attempted to board a Cathay Pacific flight to Vietnam.
The passengers initially claimed they were traveling together to Ho Chi Minh City for a two-day vacation. However, the BI officers became suspicious due to inconsistencies in their travel documents, and referred them for further inspection.
The group eventually admitted they had been recruited to work in Cambodia for a company believed to be operating as part of a regional online scam network.
According to the BI, the recruiter revealed that an Indonesian colleague from the same POGO firm had paid him to facilitate their overseas travel.
“We now see links between closed POGO companies in the Philippines and scam hubs overseas,” said BI Commissioner Joel Anthony Viado. “Some of these POGOs pretended to be legitimate, but were actually fronts for scam operations. Now that they’ve shut down, they’re recruiting Filipinos to work for scam hubs abroad.”
Viado warned the public against accepting suspicious overseas job offers, citing reports that repatriated victims had suffered abuse, torture, and electrocution while working in similar operations.
