MANILA: Philippine police said on Tuesday that over 2,700 suspects have been arrested during an anti-trafficking raid on several buildings in Manila.
Police said that Indonesian, Chinese, Singaporean, Vietnamese, Malaysian, Sudanese, Cameroonian, Myanmar and Philippine citizens were among the people found inside a building in the capital.
Police Captain Michelle Sabino said that they were interviewing more than 2,724 detainees to identify who was a suspect or victim. Global concern has been growing over cyber scams in the Asia-Pacific region, often staffed by trafficking victims tricked into encouraging bogus crypto investments.
Philippines Arrests 2,700 People in Anti-trafficking Raid
Sabino added the alleged trafficking victims had joined jobs posted on social media to work in the Philippines “to find men” for online games. She said that many of the victims were forced to work 12-hour shifts daily for as little as 24,000 pesos a month, and were not allowed to leave the compound. She described it as the “biggest ever” anti-trafficking raid in the country.
Sabino maintained “everything will be probed,” including whether or not the workers were involved in digital scam. In May, officials rescued more than thousand people from several Asian nations who had been trafficked into the Philippines, held imprisoned and enforced to run online scams.
