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UN PhotoUNODC / SCAM FARMS IN THE PHILIPPINES
STORY: UNODC / SCAM FARMS IN THE PHILIPPINES
TRT: 8:34
SOURCE: UNODC
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: VARIOUS, 2024, PHILIPPINES
1. Aerial shot, Bamban, Philippines
2. Aerial shot, former scam centre in Bamban, Philippines
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Benedikt Hofmann, the UNODC Deputy Regional Representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific:
“What we are witnessing here is basically a prime example of a scam compound as they exist in many parts of the Philippines, but also in many other parts of Southeast Asia.”
4. Tilt shot, luxury homes for scam centre bosses in Bamban, Philippines
5. Tilt shot, swimming pool used by scam centre bosses in Bamban, Philippines
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Benedikt Hofmann, the UNODC Deputy Regional Representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific:
“When this compound here was raided, there were about six, seven hundred people who were working in here. Now that’s not a huge number compared to some other compounds we know about, but it still tells you something about what’s been going on here.”
7. Pan, work room, former scam centre in Pasay, Philippines, upsound
8. Various shots, entertainment centre, former scam centre in Pasay, Philippines, upsound
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Winston Casio, Spokesman:
“They have the financial capability to corrupt anybody. They can corrupt just about anybody in public office, right? So the amount of money they have is their potent tool against law enforcement. But that doesn’t mean that there are no law enforcers out there who are willing to operate against them. A good number are willing to operate against them.”
10. Tracking shot, sex trafficking den former scam centre in Pasay, Philippines,
upsound
11. SOUNDBITE (English) Winston Casio, Spokesman, Philippines Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission (PAOCC):
“We need to address this problem as a region. We need to put our heads together because Myanmar can’t do it alone, Thailand can’t do it alone, the Philippines for sure can’t do it alone. We have to come to a table. We have to talk because the problem is regional, so the solution has to be regional as well.”
12. SOUNDBITE (English) Benedikt Hofmann, the UNODC Deputy Regional Representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific:
“They’re being threatened psychologically but then also physically, and torture is a big part of that.”
13. Tracking shot, torture room, former scam centre in Pasay, Philippines, upsound
14. Tilt shot, torture room, former scam centre in Pasay, Philippines, upsound
15. SOUNDBITE (English) “Susan,” name changed to protect her identity, Filipina woman who was trafficked to a scam centre in Myanmar where she was tortured:
“Of course, I’m so angry. I hate them. Why they do this to me? All I want is work and help to my family. That’s it. Really angry but on my other side I want to forget everything.”
16. SOUNDBITE (English) “Susan,” name changed to protect her identity, Filipina woman who was trafficked to a scam centre in Myanmar where she was tortured:
“I experience also there that three months that I didn’t meet the rich people they asked me to pay. I pay also—5,000 Thai baht in three months. Then I don’t have salary. They didn’t give me a salary and then they asked me every week 500 Thai baht, then next 500, then next week 1,000 then 2,000 then 2,000 Thai baht.”
17. SOUNDBITE (English) “Susan,” name changed to protect her identity, Filipina woman who was trafficked to a scam centre in Myanmar where she was tortured:
“I just pray. Pray and pray. Why did they beat me?”
18. SOUNDBITE (English) “Susan,” name changed to protect her identity, Filipina woman who was trafficked to a scam centre in Myanmar where she was tortured:
“There at the airport here in the Philippines I almost kissed the floor. I’m here, thank you Lord. Because I didn’t expect that I’m going home, really. They tell me there while they beat me, the one who beat me, ‘You can’t go home. You can’t. If you didn’t pay $7,000 USD you can’t go home. You die here. And your family will not see you anymore.’ Yeah! And while they beat me, they also a Chinese they beat also and so many blood. Even a Chinese also but they beat so hard also. They don’t care a human being. They just want the money. That’s the scam.”
19. SOUNDBITE (English) Benedikt Hofmann, the UNODC Deputy Regional Representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific:
“It’s really organized criminal groups that are based in this region that are masterminding this. They are the ones that essentially profit the most from them. They work with different actors; they might work with people who control territory whether in in places like border areas in the Mekong, border areas in Myanmar where different groups control territories and house these compounds, or they might work with local power structures. But in the end, these organized crime groups when they might be based in different parts of Southeast Asia, China, other parts of the region, they are the ones that really stand to gain the most and they are the ones making the big money with this business.”
20. SOUNDBITE (English) Cheng Veniles, Programme Officer, UN Office on Drugs and Crime:
“Scam centres are actually a convergence of crimes, and it starts from the fact that some local authorities, even national authorities, are involved in issuing permits to the scam centres, and then eventually it revolves in cybercrimes because a lot of these people are in fact recruited via the Internet, via social media. And then it becomes a little bit more difficult because it becomes modern slavery, because you have a human trafficking element to it. You have people working in slave-like conditions. And then eventually it becomes torture because if that person wants to leave the scam centre what they do is that they actually force people to pay them, to pay them in ransom money which they don’t have.
21. SOUNDBITE (English) Gilbert Cruz, Undersecretary, Executive Director of the Philippines Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission (PAOCC):
“We were told that they were just doing this because they want to have a job. But actually, it’s scamming activity wherein you victimize people, not necessarily Filipinos but outside of our country. So that saddened me because it’s like a victim victimizing another victim. And that’s the saddest part of this activity.”
22. Wide shot, work room, former scam centre in Pasay, Philippines
Transnational crime syndicates based in Southeast Asia are fuelling the trafficking of people, either forcing them to commit crimes or for sexual exploitation in so-called “scam farms” that have spread across the region, according to the United Nations.
There are estimated to be some 400 of these criminal enterprises in the Philippines alone. They are almost always operated clandestinely and illegally alongside licensed and legal online gaming operations.
The proliferation of online scam farms targeting victims across the world is a relatively new phenomenon that exploded during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Philippines Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission (PAOCC) has raided and shut down dozens of the operations in recent years and is collaborating with the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) to look at ways of working with other countries to disrupt and dismantle the scam farms in Southeast Asian countries, including the Philippines, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar.
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