IMMIGRATION commissioner Joel Anthony Viado yesterday said scam hubs in Myanmar, particularly in the Myawaddy area, are now targeting Filipino-Americans and Filipino migrants in the United States using social media.
Viado said this was disclosed to them by Filipino trafficking victims who were rescued from Myawaddy and repatriated to Manila last week.
“They employed various tactics, including contacting Filipino-Americans via social media messages to lure them to invest,” he said, adding prospective victims are supposedly persuaded to invest in fraudulent cryptocurrency accounts, often promising high returns with little to no risk.
Citing the narrations of the trafficked Filipinos, Viado said that once the victims transfer money to the fake cryptocurrency accounts, the scammers manipulate account balances to show fake profits and then convince their victims to make more investments.
Eventually, Viado said the scammers disappear with the funds, leaving the victims unable to withdraw their supposed earnings.
“We wish to send this warning to our kababayans abroad not to fall prey to this new modus. The inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking is working to ensure that those who continue to victimize Filipinos face the harshest penalties of the law,” the BI chief said.
The Philippine government repatriated 206 overseas Filipino workers from Myawaddy last week after they were rescued from the scam hubs where they worked.
The workers claimed they were forced to work upon arrival in Myanmar as “love scammers,” who made their victims fall in love with them and steal money through pseudo cryptocurrency investments.
They also recounted being subjected to physical abuse, long work hours without pay, and even electric shocks as punishment.
