THE National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) yesterday announced that it had rescued three Filipinos who were tricked into working as scammers in Cambodia.
NBI Director Jaime Santiago said the agency received a video message and several photographs from the three claiming they were in Cambodia and seeking the assistance of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
Santiago said the photographs also showed the three were physically hurt.
He said that upon verification of the information, his office reported the matter to the Executive Director of the DOJ-led Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking.
“This Bureau was able to gather relevant information including circumstances on how the victims were recruited to Cambodia and how they ended up in their current situation,” Santiago said at a press briefing.
The NBI chief said last March 14, he dispatched several agents to Cambodia to coordinate with Cambodian authorities to rescue the three.
“On March 16, with the assistance of the NBI, the victims were able to go home. They were provided with medical assistance and proper counseling,” Santiago said, as he extended his gratitude to the Cambodian authorities who assisted the victims.
He said the victims told the NBI that in January this year, they saw an online post offering work as a customer service representative in Cambodia with a salary of $1,000 per month.
They were contacted by a Filipino working inside a casino in Cambodia who told them that the company would shoulder all their expenses going to Cambodia.
The victims left the country on January 7 without going through the proper procedure as overseas Filipino workers.
Santiago said they first flew to Dipolog City then boarded a ferry going to Basilan, and from Basilan to Tawi-Tawi.
In Tawi-Tawi, Santiago said the victims boarded small boats before being transferred to a fishing boat until they reached Sabah, Malaysia.
“From there, they transferred from one place to another until they reached Phnom Penh, Cambodia on January 17, “ he said.
In Cambodia, they were not allowed to leave their quarters by their Chinese bosses.
However, Santiago said instead of working as a customer service representative, the victims were given cellphones where they downloaded social media applications like Signal, Twitter and Instagram and were ordered by a Filipino supervisor of the company to scam foreigners through cryptocurrency.
After one month, instead of receiving $1,000 as promised, the victims only received $300. This prompted the three to plan to transfer to another company.
However, when their plan was discovered, the victims were brought out of the compound where they were beaten by Chinese men
Earlier, Immigration Commissioner Joel Anthony Viado cautioned the public against the operation of scam hubs in various Asian countries that recruit Filipinos for supposed call center jobs.
These operations, Viado added, deceive job seekers with attractive salary offers, only for them to be coerced into running online fraud schemes, including cryptocurrency scams, under exploitative and abusive conditions.
