A total 125 Filipinos who were suspected to have been hired by scam hubs abroad were stopped from leaving the Philippines in 2024, the Bureau of Immigration (BI) said on Sunday, April 6.
“Majority of those intercepted last year were forced by their recruiters to pretend to be working in local companies, mostly in BPOs (business process outsourcing) or call centers,” the BI said in a statement.
The BI said the victims are often trafficked to Malaysia, Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar which are countries known for online scam hubs.
“The victims, tricked by false promises of legitimate jobs, were lured by deceptive social media ads promising attractive pay and coerced into creating fake online profiles, resembling to online love scams,” it also said. .
It added that the “victims are primarily targeted through misleading ads offering high salaries, especially those aged 20 to 44.”
Most of the victims, the BI said, were college graduates from the National Capital Region (NCR) and nearby areas.
“Traffickers primarily use Telegram and Facebook for these operations,” it noted.
Thus, the BI assured that it remains committed “to dismantling criminal networks and protecting Filipinos from exploitation.”