Philippines arrests 244 as banned gaming sites face scam scrutiny

Some of the 244 foreign nationals arrested in raids on two Philippine sites face investigations into possible human trafficking offences, while the rest are set for deportation. The operation highlights the criminal risks surrounding an offshore gaming industry that Manila banned in 2024. According to Al Jazeera, authorities described the raids as the country’s biggest crackdown this year on illegal offshore gaming operators.

The Philippine Immigration Bureau said military personnel and other law enforcement agencies searched two addresses on the southern island of Mindanao on Friday. It disclosed the operation in a statement late on Saturday. Most of those detained were Chinese. Authorities also seized large amounts of computer equipment, mobile phones, laptops and SIM cards at the sites.

At the first address, officers arrested 110 Chinese citizens, two Cambodians and one Hong Kong resident, the bureau said. Another 131 foreign nationals were detained at the second location. Chinese citizens again made up the majority, with people from Malaysia, Indonesia and Myanmar also among those arrested. The two raids together account for the 244 people taken into custody.

A gaming ban with a wider criminal backdrop

Philippine offshore gaming operators, known as POGOs, are gambling businesses serving customers abroad. Manila outlawed them in 2024 because criminal groups were accused of using the businesses to conceal human trafficking, money laundering, kidnapping, fraud and murder. The latest arrests bring renewed attention to the authorities’ effort to stop illegal operations after that ban, with investigators now examining possible trafficking-related offences involving several of those detained.

The wider regional picture includes people forced into the very operations authorities are trying to dismantle. A 2023 United Nations report said hundreds of thousands of people had been trafficked by gangs in recent years and compelled to work in scam centres and other illegal online businesses across Southeast Asia. Its estimates put at least 120,000 people in Myanmar and about 100,000 in Cambodia at risk of being trapped in scam operations.

The UN report also identified criminal-run businesses in Laos, the Philippines and Thailand, spanning cryptocurrency fraud and online gambling. International concern has grown over operations in which trafficking victims are deceived or coerced into selling bogus cryptocurrency investments and other scams. That regional context is separate from the Philippine government’s investigation into the people arrested in these two raids.

Investigations and deportations come next

Immigration chief Joel Viado said the bureau would keep acting against foreign nationals who breach the terms of their stay and work to prevent the country from becoming a base for unlawful operations.

Viado said immigration enforcement would continue against foreign nationals who violate their conditions of stay.

Chinese embassy spokesperson Ji Lingpeng told AFP that the embassy was seeking details from Philippine law enforcement agencies. He also said Chinese law bars gambling, including overseas gambling by Chinese citizens and employment with gambling companies. The next steps are the trafficking-related investigations involving several detainees and the planned deportation of the others, alongside the embassy’s effort to establish the details of the case.