MANILA — The Bureau of Immigration (BI) said Friday it was working with other agencies to locate some 11,000 workers of outlawed Philippine offshore gaming operators (POGOs), who were “up for deportation.”

These POGO workers failed to downgrade to tourist visas and leave the country before the Dec. 31 deadline, noted BI spokesperson Dana Sandoval.

“Doon po sa 33,863 na POGO employees under Pagcor na inaabangan nating magsialisan, ang lahat po ng umalis ay 22,609. Sa ngayon po, lumalabas na mayroong tayong 11,000 mahigit na mga foreign nationals na up for deportation,” she told TeleRadyo Serbisyo.

The BI later said it was mounting "an intensified manhunt against these illegal aliens."

"The order of the President is clear. No more POGO in the Philippines.  Foreign nationals who continue to disobey this will be arrested, deported, and blacklisted. No exceptions,” BI Commissioner Joel Anthony Viado said in the statement.

Sandoval acknowledged that searching for the 11,000 POGO workers would be “a challenge” since some of them might be hiding or could have started small-scale online gaming operations.

“Dahil online nga itong uri ng trabaho na ito…they can do it kahit sa CR. Ang naririnig po natin na reports ngayon, there are attempts to make breakaway groups of less than 10 people sa mga subdivision,” she said.

PAOCC: Government monitoring 'indicators' of small-scale POGO operations

The immigration bureau partnered with the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission (PAOCC), law enforcement agencies, and local governments to monitor suspicious activities.

Sandoval warned the public against harboring former POGO workers, saying, “Kung alam po nila na ang ginagawa po ng foreign national doon ay illegal, may illegal operations ng online gaming, this is considered as harboring illegal aliens.”

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As part of the search for POGO workers, the interior department said commercial establishments and residential buildings would have to be inspected, especially since it is business permit renewal season. 

“Kasi ngayon renewal ng business permits, they have the power to inspect all buildings, on real property taxes, they have the power to go in, to inspect, kung may operations,” Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla said.  

SCAM FARMS’ NEW TACTICS 

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. last July announced a total ban by end-2024 on POGOs, which authorities said were used as cover by organised crime for human trafficking, money laundering, online fraud, kidnappings and even murder.

Justice Undersecretary Felix Nicholas Ty said government raids were ongoing as scammers continue to traffic foreign and local workers, forcing them to pitch clients around the world on fake investment schemes.

But they no longer operate in huge compounds or office complexes in large cities, having relocated to the provinces using less conspicuous buildings.

"The MO (modus operandi) right now of these operations is to have a guerrilla-style, smaller-scale (operations) in resorts, maybe even residences," Ty told a security forum, adding some also switched to hardware that are not "top of the line".

"We're seeing the evolution from big-scale operations to smaller operations," agreed Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian, who also spoke at the forum.

Gatchalian said the scam farms were employing other guises, including a recently raided outfit that was masquerading as a business process outsourcing but was found to be running "scamming software".

Ty said that while there were signs "that their resources are in decline," the scam operators "remain entrenched," and it would be "unrealistic for us to get them all" due to limited government resources and manpower.

Southeast Asia, including the Philippines, is "ground zero for the global scamming industry", the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime's deputy regional representative Benedikt Hofmann told UN News earlier this year.

The Washington-based think-tank United States Institute of Peace said in a May 2024 report that these scammers target millions of victims around the world and rake in annual revenues of $64 billion.

"These crime groups are coming from largely mainland China and ... they started operating in the online gambling space" before branching out into the more lucrative scamming, Jason Tower, a principal author of the study, told the Manila forum.

It estimates the industry employs half a million workers, who were recruited mainly via social media and were then forced to work on the scams, facing torture if they fail to meet quotas.

Ty said the syndicates have invested "a lot of sunk costs" in their Philippine-based operations and may want to recover some of them.

"That's why they persist in operating the way they're operating now, even if it is in a smaller scale and perhaps less profitable manner than it was before."

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— With reports from Adrian Ayalin, ABS-CBN News; Agence France-Presse