An internet gaming company has denounced the March 13 raid by the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission and the Philippine National Police on its compound in Tarlac.
The raid was carried out on the strength of two search warrants, issued by the executive judge of the Bulacan Regional Trial Court, for human trafficking and illegal detention, accusations the company claims were ridiculous and without basis.
Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission (PAOCC) officials claimed that the operation stemmed from a complaint by a Vietnamese national who was able to escape from the facility on Feb. 28 and a Malaysian national who sought the agency’s help, claiming that he was being illegally detained inside the compound.
The raiding team reported it was able to rescue 371 Filipinos, 432 Chinese, eight Malaysians, 57 Vietnamese nationals, three Taiwanese nationals, two Indonesians, and two Rwandans during the raid.
Jonathan Mendoza, spokesman of the Zun Yuan Technology Inc., said the police operation came as a complete surprise, adding that their corporation has always maintained an open communication line with the government, especially law enforcement agencies, at the local, provincial, and national levels.
“In fact, the company had even hosted the PNP (Philippine National Police), particularly the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, and the PAOCC, on March 5, or a little more than a week before the raid,” he said.
Mendoza said during the event, the agents got to interact with company officials and watch employees demonstrate online betting during the visit, which lasted for hours.
“If someone was being trafficked and illegally detained, the operatives would have discovered the crimes right there and then. They had been given a run of the place.”
The spokesman also deplored the manner in which the raid was conducted. He said the Bamban police was kept in the dark, and there was no coordination made with the Regional Command in San Fernando, Pampanga, which had jurisdiction over Tarlac and all other provinces in Central Luzon.
“Most troubling of all, the police operatives disabled the CCTV and destroyed the footage of the raid,” he said.
Following the raid, officials of the company were denied entry into the building. They were prevented from conducting an inventory of computers and other high-value equipment, including a vault in which the company kept important documents and cash amounting to tens of millions of pesos.
“It is not clear whether the raiders have emptied the vault or have carted it away altogether,” the spokesman said.
He said all firearms confiscated in the operation were shotguns that belonged to a security agency, and there were no assault rifles or high-caliber guns in the mix.
Mendoza said their operation was aboveboard and it’s doing business under a provisional Internet Gaming License issued by the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation in October 2023.
He said the crimes that the inter-agency task force was supposed to stop did not exist at all.
All Filipino citizens and foreign nationals—mostly Chinese and Vietnamese—employed by the company were free to move around. Until the agents swooped down on them, they came and went as they pleased.
Mendoza maintained there was no legal justification for the raid.
He said what the raid accomplished was to deprive people of their livelihood. Of those who lost their jobs as a result of the raid are 700 Filipinos, working as admin staff, customer service representatives, security guards, and housekeepers with salaries ranging from P20,000 to P35,000 a month.
Also adversely affected are owners of small restaurants, fruit stands, laundromats, and sari-sari stores in the immediate vicinity. Most of them have since closed down for lack of customers.