512 aliens collared over offshore telecom scam
Joint government law enforcement agents arrested 512 foreigners for alleged offshore telecommunications investment scam, including the use of phising to steal identity, during a raid at an illegal Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) company in Parañaque City Wednesday night.
Maj. Gen. Guillermo Eleazar, director of the National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO), said the 512 foreigners are all undocumented and engaged in offshore telecommunication investment fraud.
Fortunato Manahan Jr., BI intelligence division chief, said the foreigners conducted the fraud through phishing and other identity theft techniques, which Eleazar said is similar to “budolbudol.”
The 512 foreigners working in the country without appropriate permits were nabbed Wednesday around 9:40 p.m. by joint members of the regional police and the Bureau of Immigration (BI) in a raid at the 7th floor of Millenium Building.
The arrested aliens – who are now temporarily detained at NCRPO headquarters in Camp Bagong Diwa – were mostly male and made up of 418 Chinese, 44 Myanmar nationals, 26 Malaysians, 19 Vietnamese, four Taiwanese, and one Indonesian.
“The initial information from the Bureau of Immigration stated that all of them have no working permit,” said Eleazar.
Eleazar said they conducted the raid after receiving reports from their counterpart in China of the illegal operations of a telecom fraud syndicate in Parañaque City, mostly victimizing Chinese nationals.
Armed with a search warrant, NCRPO, BI personnel and soldiers raided the BPO owned by Golden Unicom Technology, Inc. at the 7th Floor of the Millennium Building on NAIA Road Wednesday night.
Eleazar said the modus of the suspects is to encourage victims, mostly Chinese, to invest on a business. They would then empty the bank accounts of the victims once the bank details are obtained.
“The operation is a statement of a good relationship between the Philippine law enforcement agencies and our foreign counterparts which is indispensable to ensure that the rule of law prevails in all circumstances,” said Eleazar.
Following the raid, the Parañaque City’s Business Permits and Licensing Office (BPLO) served the closure order on Golden Unicom Technology, Inc. for violation of City Ordinance No. 04-22 (68) or the Revenue Code of Parañaque City as it wrongly declared its business permit.
Golden Unicom’s documents – including tax documents and Mayor’s Permit – showed that it is a customer service and call center company, Parañaque City administrator Ding Soriano said.
“Apparenty, base po sa Mayor’s Permit na inissue natin, mayroong misdeclaration na ginawa [Apparently, based on the Mayor’s Permit that we issued them, there’s misdeclaration committed],” Soriano said.
“Closure kaagad itong business na ito [We automatically have to serve its closure],” he added.
The company’s officials reportedly said that it had only been operating for two weeks when it was raided.
The city government said that they will create a special action committee to monitor the presence of Chinese-owned businesses in the area and will seek assistance from the police, the local government offices, the anti-narcotics agency and the Chinese embassy. (With a report from Jun Ramirez)