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Philippines issues fresh warning over Chinese-run crypto scams amid repatriation effort
- Filipinos have been targets of scam networks operating in Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia, because of their English-language and computer skills
- 50-70 Filipinos are believed to be still working for Chinese scammers in Myanmar, with another 100 working for scams in Laos and Cambodia
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Four Filipinos arrived back home on Monday as the Philippines continues to repatriate citizens tricked into working at Chinese-run cryptocurrency scams in Southeast Asia, a foreign ministry official said on Monday.
Filipinos have been “prized” targets for scam networks operating in Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia, because of their English-language and computer skills, said Eduardo de Vega, acting undersecretary for migrant workers’ affairs at the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs.
De Vega said efforts to repatriate Filipinos sucked into the scams were ongoing, with more than 100 brought home since last year.
The four men who arrived back on Monday, all in their 30s, had been trafficked into Myanmar for “less than two months”, during which they were held in compounds, De Vega said.
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The men were in Dubai when they were recruited online to work as “customer support representatives” in Thailand, the ministry said.
When they arrived in Bangkok, they were taken to the western Thai city of Mae Sot and ferried across the border into Myanmar “rebel territory”, De Vega said.
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There they were “forced to trick individuals into investing in cryptocurrency”, the foreign ministry said in a statement.
Myanmar’s rugged borderlands are home to a patchwork of ethnic rebel groups and military-aligned militia that have fought each other for decades over territory, lucrative timber and jade resources, and the drug trade.
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