It is estimated that there are around 400 such criminal enterprises in the Philippines alone. They are almost always operated secretly and illegally alongside licensed and legal online gaming operations.
The rise of online scam farms targeting victims around the world is a relatively new phenomenon that has exploded in COVID-19 pandemic.
The Philippine Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission (PAOCC) has raided and shut down dozens of operations in recent years and is working with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).UNODC) to look at ways to cooperate with other countries to disrupt and dismantle scam farms in Southeast Asian countries, including the Philippines, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar.
Scam farms like this one, located north of the Philippine capital Manila, can house hundreds of workers.
United Nations NewsDaniel Dickinson visited two raided locations in the Philippine capital Manila and Bamban in the north. He spoke to two people: Susan, a Filipino, and Dylan* from Malaysia who were forced to carry out the scams. He also met Winston Casio of PAOCC.
Susan: My half-sister tricked me into leaving home and going to Myanmar, where I was promised a marketing job in her company. It turned out to be a scam farm, and I was forced to work to pay off my sister’s debt when she ran away.
I created a fake persona, a wealthy young woman living in Brooklyn, New York, who owns real estate and businesses. The managers gave me pictures from an Instagram account to build the persona and told me to contact divorced or single men in the United States and have them wire me money. This is what is called a “love scam”. In the pictures, my character is always shopping. But I can’t even go outside. I’m stuck inside the building.
We were given scripts to use in text conversations, and when they asked me to improvise, I used a grammar app to check my English. If a client wants to meet you on a video call, they have models who play that role. Models are also trafficked.
Susan was trafficked to a fraudulent farm in Myanmar.
Dylan: Most people don’t choose to be there. You have to work up to 16 hours a day, especially when you have to communicate with clients in different time zones. Managers told me to get them to invest in a fictitious oil deal in Dubai and then steal their money.
There was a quota on how much money you had to scam. They set a target for me of $100,000 a month, and when I didn’t hit that target, I got hit.
Winston Casio: We rescued about 680 people in the Bamban scam farm, but we think some of the managers escaped after being informed.
These were massive operations. People were not allowed to leave. They were held against their will and forced to commit fraud and deceit. Women were trafficked into sex slavery, and the managers of one farm had what they called “fishbowls” where women were forcibly displayed and then selected by men to perform sexual acts.
Winston Casio stands in the old barber shop of a scam farm in Manila.
Each location is self-contained and everything is provided. There are dormitories and canteens, of course, but there are also barbershops, medical clinics, massage spas, gambling rooms, as well as VIP karaoke bars for senior managers, where they can drink, sing and socialize in private rooms.
Just a few meters further down the corridor, we also found a torture room with handcuffs and bloodstains on the walls, where people were taken to endure brutal punishments when they failed to meet their quota.
Susan: I almost scammed some customers but felt bad about it so I secretly warned them while telling my manager that they blocked me. He got angry and hit me with a metal pipe. My injuries were too serious to be treated at the scam farm so I was taken to the hospital by three guards but could not tell the doctor what really happened to me. I am still suffering from physical and mental trauma.
A VIP karaoke bar was operating just a few meters down the corridor from the torture chamber.
Dylan: I didn’t get paid, but I started to accumulate debt because I had to pay for food, which was two to three times more expensive at the scam farm than outside. I was released after a month when the facility was raided.
Texts used by an employee to approach victims were found on a desk at a scam farm raided by authorities.
Winston Casio: Sometimes it can be hard to tell the difference between a victim and an accomplice. There are cases where people are taken against their will, but after four or five days of training, they embrace the illegal activity and thrive, making real money. The law wants to see this situation in black and white, but there are many gray areas.
It can be said that this situation is very difficult, because the transnational organized crime networks that run these facilities are always three or four steps ahead of us.
This is a regional problem that no one country can solve. This is organized crime. Susan will confirm that the furniture and computer equipment are the same in the facilities in Myanmar and the Philippines.
Law enforcement agencies across Southeast Asia need to cooperate and coordinate, and here’s why UNODC very important. It can bring countries together and provide expertise, for example, in digital forensic investigations.
An abandoned workstation after a raid on a scam farm in Manila.
Susan: Near the end, I was beaten 13 times in one day. I just prayed and prayed while they beat me. I was forced to call my parents and ask them to pay a ransom of $7,000, which was for medical expenses. They didn’t have the money, and I told them not to try to pay. I told my manager ‘just kill me’.
They didn’t care about people. They only cared about money. However, they eventually realized that I had no money and I was of no use to them, so they let me go. I returned to the Philippines via Thailand.
***
Susan is currently working for PAOCC in Manila, and Dylan has agreed to be a witness in the upcoming lawsuit and hopes to eventually return home to Malaysia.
*Not their real names
