Police in the Philippines conducted a raid on several buildings in Manila where alleged victims of human trafficking were employed to recruit online game users, resulting in the arrest of more than 2,700 people. Among those arrested were Chinese, Indonesian, Vietnamese, Singaporean, Malaysian, Pakistani, Cameroonian, Sudanese, Burmese, and Filipino nationals. Authorities are questioning the detainees, a total of 2,724, to determine who are victims and who are suspects. Of these, more than 1,500 are Filipinos.
International concern has been heightened by online scams in the Asia-Pacific region, where human trafficking victims are tricked or coerced into promoting fake cryptocurrency investments. In this case, the alleged victims accepted job offers posted on Facebook to recruit players for online games. Many of them were forced to work 12-hour shifts per day for a monthly salary of only 24,000 pesos ($433) and were forbidden to leave the premises.
According to the spokeswoman for the anti-cybercrime unit, this operation represents the largest anti-trafficking bust ever carried out in the Philippines. AFP journalists on the scene saw police buses and trucks parked outside the compound but were not allowed to enter the buildings.
In May, Philippine authorities rescued more than 1,000 people from several Asian countries who had been trafficked and forced into online scams.