3 more Filipinos rescued from Myanmar

MANILA, Philippines — Three more Filipinos were successfully repatriated from Myanmar on Friday after they were lured out of the country by online offers of lucrative jobs as call center agents in Bangkok, only to end up as scammers.

The unidentified victims were all male in their 20s to 30s, the Bureau of Immigration (BI) said on Saturday as it confirmed that the three repatriates were part of a larger group of human trafficking victims from Myanmar.

The BI said the Filipinos were originally recruited through Facebook with job offers in Thailand, but after they reached the Thai capital, they were moved to Mae Sot to cross the water border to Myanmar via boat.

Online scams

They were eventually brought to the city of Shwe Kokko, known for its Chinese investors and employees doing illegal online scams.

Previous repatriates of the same case revealed they created fake accounts in at least 16 online dating platforms like Tinder, Grindr, and OkCupid, where they would target Americans and Europeans to invest in pseudo cryptocurrency accounts.

Aside from the bogus job offer and the modus operandi they were forced to participate in, the Filipinos also endured harsh working conditions such as being subject to physical punishments like doing hundreds of push-ups and jump squats, tasing, food and water deprivation, and confinement if they don’t reach their weekly quotas.

“The victims likewise reported working 16 to 18 hours a day, with no day off,” the BI said in its press release.