MANILA: The Philippines is appealing to foreign governments for help in rescuing its nationals believed to be trapped in scam hubs across mainland Southeast Asia, the Department of Foreign Affairs said on Wednesday.
For several years, the cyberscam industry has proliferated in Southeast Asia, especially in border areas of Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Thailand.
More than 220,000 people from all over the world — many trafficked to the region — have been working in scam hubs in Cambodia and Myanmar alone, according to UN Office on Drugs and Crime data.
UNODC’s April 2025 report estimates that they generate about $40 billion annually, from romance scams, cryptocurrency fraud, fake investment platforms, online gambling, phishing and impersonation scams.
The presence of Filipinos in these operations came to the spotlight when at least 200 of them were freed in late February and March from a scam center located in an office complex in Myawaddy on Myanmar’s border with Thailand.
It was unclear at the time how many more Philippine nationals remained there, but the Department of Foreign Affairs has been receiving reports of Filipinos “still trapped inside different scam centers” in Southeast Asia.
The DFA said it is working closely with its embassies and consulates in Thailand, Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia “to persistently devote efforts and resources in extending all possible assistance to our Filipinos in distress, while requesting the authorities of the host countries for their invaluable cooperation.”
The DFA called on overseas-based nationals to help prevent the recruitment of Filipinos into such operations, and urged relatives of victims “to provide verified information on their kin that they believe may be trapped in scam hubs in the vicinity of the Myanmar-Thai border.”
The rescue of Philippine nationals in April helped to shed light on new patterns of their recruitment by scam syndicates.
An investigation by the Philippine Interagency Council Against Trafficking showed that many of them came from the Philippines’ middle class and were often educated individuals — not necessarily unemployed — seeking better opportunities abroad.
The offers usually came through unofficial channels such as social media, advertising roles in call centers, marketing, customer service or chat support — often based in Thailand.
But once they reached Thailand, instead of the jobs they were promised, the victims were transported across the border into the high-security compounds where they were forced to scam people globally.
Their rescue is complicated by the fact that many hubs operate in lawless border zones or semi-autonomous regions controlled by militias, such as Myanmar’s Karen State, limiting diplomatic and law enforcement reach.
