PAOCC rescues 35 foreigners from illegal POGO

The Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission (PAOCC) received a distress call on Thursday from an Indonesian who claimed that a group headed by former POGO “big boss” Liu Meng locked 34 of them inside a dormitory at the Kanlaon Tower in Pasay.

Liu reportedly got angry after the Indonesians – former POGO workers whose contracts were terminated on Jan. 21 – refused to join her in Cambodia and pleaded instead to be allowed to return to their homeland.

“We were able to find the two bosses, Liu Meng, and her administrative officer. When we showed their pictures to the 34 victims, they specifically identified Liu Meng to be the big boss and they said that the guy in black, the administrative officer, was the one holding their passports,” PAOCC spokesman Winston Casio told reporters at a briefing yesterday.

One of the rescued Indonesians said he was clueless as to why they would go to Cambodia.

During initial interviews, the victims informed authorities that a Chinese national was being tortured inside a room at the Marina Seaview Residences, according to Casio.

The Southern Police District and Pasay City Police Station conducted an operation early yesterday where they rescued Peter (not his real name) and arrested three of his kidnappers, allegedly part of a syndicate.

Peter faced reporters at the briefing where he showed torture marks on his arms and abdomen. He is scheduled today for a doctor’s appointment.

In one of the videos presented by the PAOCC, Peter was seen with a caliber .38 gun pointed at him by one of the suspects, who destroyed the weapon during the operation.

A second video showed another Chinese national chained to a wall and being tortured with electric shocks by one of the kidnappers. The PAOCC still do not know about her whereabouts. Casio said the twin raids are interconnected.

“We could definitely say that the people in Kanlaon knew what was happening in Marina, that’s why we were led in Marina,” he said.

In Calamba City, three Chinese nationals and 23 Filipinos were rounded up in a raid on a suspected guerrilla-type POGO facility.

Heavily armed police officers from the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group raided a building within a compound in Barangay La Mesa past noon.

Apart from the CIDG, officers of the PAOCC, Bureau of Immigration and personnel from other concerned agencies were present during the operation.

The raid was based on a tip from informants that an illegal POGO hub was operating in the area.

The identities of the apprehended Chinese were withheld. Communication devices and equipment were also seized in the operation.

5,000 Aussies victims of Philippine-based love scam

Meanwhile, PAOCC said over 5,000 Australians were duped by Filipino scammers working at a scam farm, luring victims to invest in bogus crypto accounts by posing as a heartbroken woman left by her fiancé who only wanted “my money, not my love.”

Authorities got wind of the operation after examining the computers inside the Kimberhi Building, a love scam hub raided by the PAOCC in October 2024.

In January, the Australian Federal Police (AFP) alerted these people that they were targets of the scam and warned them not to send any money.

The PAOCC and AFP faced reporters at a press briefing on yesterday to shed light on the “sophisticated” methods used to deceive love-struck foreign nationals.

“Imagine, we are sponsoring scamming hubs in the country, and we are not only victimizing Australian nationals but Taiwanese nationals, Chinese nationals, Singaporeans, people from Europe. That’s quite sad, hearing stories about scams,” PAOCC director Gilberto Cruz told reporters.

Australian police officer Kathleen Oehlers said scammers were actively searching for wealthy victims on online dating apps.

“In the case of this scam center, it was targeting men at the age of 35 until the age of 80, full-time employment and financially secure that would invest in these crypto investment scams,” she said.

Scammers would follow a script – possibly developed with input from psychologists – about being abandoned by their fiancés before injecting the subject of cryptocurrency into the conversation, according to Cruz and Oehlers.

The AFP estimates that victims spent as much as 800 Australian dollars (approximately P30,000) on crypto accounts.

“There are many English-speaking people here, making it easier for Filipinos to deceive Australians, Europeans or even Americans,” Cruz said in Filipino.

Oehlers said no Australian was in cahoots with the scam hub operators.

Kimberhi, located near the Senate building in Pasay, was shut down in October after authorities uncovered alleged scam operations similar to the one raided in Bamban, Tarlac.

—EJ Macababbad, Emmanuel Tupas