FIVE of the 26 Filipinos rescued and repatriated from a scam hub in Cambodia last week were tagged as recruiters by their colleagues, the Bureau of Immigration said yesterday.
Immigration Commissioner Joel Anthony Viado said the five have been charged by the National Bureau of Investigation, which led the probe based on the claims raised by the rest of the group.
“Out of the 26 Filipinos repatriated, five were pinpointed by the victims to be recruiters and are now facing cases filed by the National Bureau of Investigation International Airport Investigation Division for syndicated and large-scale illegal recruitment and qualified trafficking in persons committed in large scale by a syndicate,” Viado said.
Both are non-bailable offenses.
Viado did not identify the five.
The 26 arrived in Manila last April 16 after being rescued through the assistance of the Philippine Embassy in Cambodia.
The BI chief said the investigation showed that 25 of those repatriated left in the guise of being regular tourists, but admitted upon repatriation that they were recruited using the social messaging app Telegram and Facebook.
He said they were promised $900 to 1000 in monthly salary to work as customer service representatives, but ended up underpaid and forced to work as scammers.
“They recounted how they were given a quota to scam two Filipino-Americans per day, and if they were not able to meet the said quota, they would be punished physically by their employers,” Viado said.
Investigation, according to Viado, further revealed that one of the rescued also admitted to having taken a small boat to Malaysia from Tawi-Tawi, where he was transported to Laos to work as a translator, and later transferred to Myanmar, then to Cambodia.
The Department of Foreign Affairs also repatriated 10 more Filipinos working in the same scam hub in Cambodia last Easter Sunday.
