An Indonesian national testified about his experience being recruited to work at a “scam hub” in Manila targeting his countrymen during a Senate hearing on human trafficking.
Sen. Risa Hontiveros presented the Indonesian, identified as “Ridwan,” to the senate and described how large condominiums were being repurposed as “living and working facilities for trafficked human beings being forced to perform scams on hapless victims.”
Facing the Senate Committee on Women, Children, Family Relations and Gender Equality, Ridwan shared that he found a job posting on Facebook in February looking for digital marketers in Manila.
He applied and was accepted. But when he arrived in the Philippines, he was told that they would be part of a scam operation targeting fellow Indonesians.
Ridwan left Jakarta with two other Indonesians on March 7. The group was asked by their recruiter to take a selfie together. When they landed in Manila, they were met by a person in navy pants, a white shirt, and an apple green vest, who had a copy of their selfie.
The person escorted them through the Bureau of Quarantine and the Bureau of Immigration counters, Ridwan said. He claimed the officer did not ask them questions and stamped their passports.
He recounted that a driver brought them to Bayport West NAIA Garden Residences in Pasay City. Ridwan claimed that he was asked to sign a contract but was not allowed to read through it. But he still signed it as he felt afraid and pressured to do so.
He recounted that he saw 100 to 200 Indonesians in the complex, but also saw people of other nationalities.
Ridwan said he worked with Indonesian employees but was managed by Black and Chinese supervisors. He told the panel that they were ordered to steal other people’s identities and scam fellow Indonesians by finding them on Tinder, Facebook, and Instagram. They were instructed to catfish these targets using fake accounts of young women and make them fall in love with them — and get them to invest in cryptocurrency.
When they were unable to successfully scam victims, they were told they would be punished.
Ridwan said that they were promised a salary of PHP80,000 (US$1,427.26) a month, but became dubious after other employees would beg him for instant noodles and cigarettes, and believed that their salaries were withheld from them.
He added that he knew about “secret areas” where employees were electrocuted.
Days after arriving in Manila, Ridwan lied and told his supervisor that he was sick and could not work. He was told that he needed to pay back what the company spent for him, and so he paid them PHP100,000 (US$1,783.28).
Ridwan left the Philippines on March 16.
Hontiveros said that other victims of scam hubs came from countries such as Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar, and other countries in Africa and South Asia.
The senator also slammed the BI for being unnecessarily harsh on departing Filipino tourists, citing human trafficking reasons, even as foreigners were being trafficked into the country.
“How come departing Filipino tourists are being asked for things such as their yearbooks, but then incoming foreigners such as Ridwan and his companions were not even asked questions [by immigration]?” Hontiveros questioned.
