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Fallout from the raid of an online gambling and cyber-scamming operation in the Philippines is mounting amid the death of a torture victim, suspected operator links to a second raided property and delays in rescuing more victims after the withdrawal of a search warrant.
The Presidential Anti-Organised Crime Commission (PAOCC), which executed the raid this week on a property in Porac, Pampanga Province, said one of several victims of torture caught on video, apparently at the property, has died.
PAOCC officers have yet to recover the body, which intelligence reports say may have been illegally cremated, spokesman John Casio said.
A second torture victim, a female Chinese tourist, was reported on Wednesday (June 5) to have been abducted from Manila’s Ninoy Aquino International Airport and brought to the compound to be sold online for sexual services.
The number of workers rescued from vehicles leaving the property was updated on Wednesday to 36 Filipinos and 158 foreign nationals, including 126 Chinese, 23 Vietnamese, four Malaysians, four Burmese and one Korean, according to PAOCC data.
However, the PAOCC operation has been hampered by a court’s withdrawal of a search warrant for the premises, operated by deregistered PAGCOR licensee Lucky South 99 Outsourcing Inc, possibly leaving some victims locked inside.
PAOCC undersecretary Gilbert Cruz has also conceded since the raid that the compound was all but empty when the authorities arrived, and likely tipped off ahead of time, with video footage from inside showing workers fleeing buildings.
“It’s a bit disappointing to see this happening in police operations,” he told reporters on Thursday.
“So I said we should start investigating. Why is this happening? Why is there a leak?”
National police spokesperson Jean Fajardo said on Thursday that the police chief of Porac had been stood down ahead of a probe into how the massive, unlicensed Lucky South 99 compound could operate undetected.
As most workers had fled ahead of the raid, PAOCC officers and police recovered many of the foreign nationals from outside the compound after they escaped, including one Chinese kidnap victim still handcuffed to a metal bedframe. The man later showed officers extensive torture markings and wounds on his body.
However, Cruz said the compound managers locked down the buildings, possibly leaving workers inside that the PAOCC and police cannot reach without a re-issued warrant.
Fajardo added that police are investigating evidence that the Porac property has links to a nearby compound in Bamban, Tarlac Province, where former PAGCOR licensee Zun Yuan Technology was raided in March over cyber-scamming and torture allegations.
The earlier raid exploded into a national scandal when it was revealed that local mayor Alice Guo, an ethnic Chinese who formerly co-owned the property, could not verify her identity as a Philippine citizen or details of her upbringing and schooling.
Guo, whose term as mayor is now suspended, has since been linked through ownership of the Bamban property to two people jailed in Singapore in recent weeks over that city’s largest-ever, multi-billion dollar money laundering probe.
Ongoing Senate committee hearings into Guo and the wider case have rejuvenated calls from senators for the shutdown of all foreign-facing online gambling companies, citing possible involvement of the Chinese government and warning of a threat to national security.
Anti-gambling Senator Risa Hontiveros on Wednesday convened an executive session of her committee on women’s affairs, attended by senior officials from law enforcement, intelligence, gambling regulation, foreign affairs and immigration, among others, to discuss Guo’s links to online gambling operations.
Hontiveros later called on the National Security Council (NSC), whose members attended the meeting, to recommend to NSC head, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr, to look into shutting down the online gambling industry for endangering national security.
“Hopefully the NSC will listen to our call and that the President will look into it and see if POGO is indeed a national security threat,” she said in Filipino. “We hope he can act on it.”
Also on Thursday, PAOCC spokesman Casio told reporters that out of 402 cancelled POGO licensees and service provider licensees, around 100 are still operating illegally.
Casio complained that the overwhelming volume of illegal activity exceeds the PAOCC’s capacities for monitoring and enforcement.
“To be honest with you, we don’t know how long the PAOCC can sustain this operation by itself,” he said in comments translated from the Filipino by the Philippine Inquirer.
“That’s why we always ask for help” from multiple national agencies, he said.
