Watch: Philippines special forces arrest Israelis running global online fraud racket at former US airbase
Suspects allegedly lured victims into investing in foreign stocks, then took their money through an online app after obtaining their bank account and credit card details
Philippine police arrested nearly 500 people, including eight Israeli nationals, who they say were involved in an online investment fraud that victimised people overseas, including in Australia and South Africa, police said Thursday.
In one of the Philippines’ biggest anti-cybercrime busts in years, police chief Oscar Albayalde said 474 Filipino employees and the Israelis were taken into custody following the raid on three buildings in Clark Freeport, a former US Air Force base north of Manila, where the alleged online fraud was committed.
The suspects lured victims into investing in foreign stocks in a purportedly flourishing London-based company then took their money through an online app after obtaining their bank account and credit card details, said Chief Superintendent Marni Marcos, who heads the national police Anti-Cybercrime Group.
The Israeli men were arrested “while in the act of managing, operating and manning the three target buildings” while the Filipinos were caught communicating and doing online transactions with foreign clients from Europe, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and Russia, Albayalde said in a statement.
Police video shows officers with assault rifles, backed by special forces units, barging into a vast office and repeatedly yelling “Hands up!” while ordering some of the suspects not to touch their computers. Some of the Israelis could be seen being led away in handcuffs.