On Wednesday, September 4, Indonesian National Police arrested a fugitive from the Philippines, Alice Guo. The former mayor of Bamban, Tarlac is currently under investigation for her involvement in illegal online gambling operations.
Known in the Philippines as POGOs (Philippine offshore gaming operators), these gambling hubs are also hotbeds for online fraud and human trafficking, according to investigations by Philippine law enforcement authorities.
One of the victims forced to work on these hubs as online fraudsters was 27-year-old Rudi (not his real name). A former graphic design college graduate from Bandung, Indonesia, Rudi was one of 154 Indonesian citizens who was rescued by Philippine police authorities in a raid inside the Clark Freeport Zone, in Mabalacat, Pampanga.
Rudi still recalls with terror the days he spent inside the POGO hub. Working 18 hours a day, he had to seduce people “in a very evil and cunning way,” pretending to be someone else, until the target finally invested in a fake crypto product.
Financial losses in entrepreneurship during the COVID-19 pandemic led him to ask for help from a friend. The friend, an overseas worker who was one of his hangout buddies, was unable to offer a loan. However, he told Rudi he could help him find work abroad.
“I don’t have money to lend but I can recommend you to my recruiter where I work now,” Rudi recalled his friend saying.
Driven by hope, Rudi left for the Philippines towards the end of 2022. He believed an overseas job paying at least 22 million Indonesian rupiahs (roughly ₱80,437 or about US$1,436) monthly could erase his debts.
Little did Rudi know that the kind offer was actually a trap.
His hangout buddy stood to gain an extra 20 million Indonesian rupiahs (P73,132.154 or roughly US$1,305) for each successful recruit to what he later learned was a POGO operation.
Scam university
At first, Rudi suspected nothing. The recruitment procedures looked professional and the interview process was formal. The company that recruited him covered all travel expenses. Upon arrival at the Manila airport, he was picked up by a luxury car and was provided free meals throughout the three-hour journey to the company location in Clark city.
Rudi was informed that he would be working on cryptocurrency investment. Before starting work, he was brought to a building called “university” where he and his fellow trainees were required to complete a week-long training program around the basics of finance, investing, and shopping habits in different cultures.
The short course also covered effective communication skills and negotiation. “My position is in the marketing team, so I thought it’s natural to be taught how to speak. Everything seemed normal.”
After completing the training period, Rudi and about 30 of his classmates were met with a jubilant reception when they entered the building.
Hundreds of employees greeted the new graduates with cheers and gongs. There was also a big chart board. “There were company cheers that were chanted to go with our steps,” he said.
Although lively, he saw it as an odd sight. The welcome party was very crowded and rowdy. On hindsight, Rudi noted that they acted “like gangsters.”
Nightmare begins
Upon arriving at his designated work area, Rudi was led into a room to have a one-on-one talk with his prospective team leader, a man who came from Surabaya, the second largest city in Indonesia.
This was the point when the nightmare started.
With a threatening stare and intonation, Rudi’s team leader broke the bad news. “Lu udah tau kerja di sini apaan? Lu pasti gak tahu karena gak dijelasin di training!” (Do you already know what work here is? You definitely don’t know because it wasn’t explained in the training.)
Rudi was then handed a stack of catalogs containing dozens of photographs of models along with work guides. The models were real people. It turned out that the job that the newly-arrived workers were supposed to do involved impersonating those in the catalog.
Rudi was told to choose who he wants to be from the model catalog. There were also descriptions of each persona, but he was recommended to improvise based on his own character.
The work guides described how to carry out specific schemes. Rudi was instructed to pick a scheme and learn how to do it.
Rudi considered quitting. But the team leaders told him and his fellow recruits they will have to pay all recruitment and travel expenses plus the fine because all expenses were covered by the company.
This is how the manipulation started. “There is no turning back after arriving here,” Rudi’s team leader told him.
He felt he had no choice. After all he was there to make money to pay off his debts.
Fraudsters’ hub
From that point on, Rudi felt how fake and disgusting the days were.
Implementing what he was taught a week earlier about investment, finance, communication, and manners, he was forced to target people daily and persuade them to invest in fraudulent schemes under the guise of crypto investment.
He finally realized what the function of the gong and the big chart board displayed in the room was. “(It was) to celebrate if someone caught a victim.” Every achievement was celebrated with a gong. Achievers were given financial incentives.
The group that Rudi worked for was not the only POGO operation in Clark City at the time he was there. Rudi recalled seeing a sprawling area with many buildings, a university where recruits were trained, and a restaurant. The area was guarded by armed security officers. Rudi’s friend was working in the same area but for a different group.
The massive hub where Rudi was rescued from has been operating since 2021.
Each company’s fraud division operated secretly, without interacting with the others. Within the complex, the workers were identified by the color of their name tags/lanyards. A different color signaled a different group.
Based on that, the security officers could see if employees were breaking the “no interaction” rule even from afar.
Rudi knew that the perpetrators are mostly Chinese nationals and two of them are Indonesians. But he never who the owners were. He only knew the middle men and supervisors with whom he interacted. He also got to know the other Indonesians who were recruited into the operation.
Employees of these scam companies were not allowed to interact with each other. If employees broke this “no interaction rule,” they were fined by their supervisor, with the fine deducted from their monthly salary.
“I was placed in a cryptocurrency scam company. For love scams, online gambling, that’s different. We are not allowed to interact, because there are fines,” Rudi explained.
Road to rescue
After three months of work, Rudy finally resigned. “Deceiving people is against my conscience,” he explained. This act consigned him to an isolated building called the “resignation room,” the designated space for employees who wanted to quit.
At the time he was rescued, Rudi was being held captive in this room along with other victims. They were told that they could only be released after paying steep fines.
Trapped indoors without daylight, time blurred for Rudi and his colleagues, leaving them disoriented.
“Nggak tahu jam, nggak tahu tanggal, hidup di dalam gedung nggak boleh keluar. Kalau mau makan hanya menunggu makanan sisa katering hari itu dikirim dari kantin.” (I didn’t know the time. I didn’t know the date. I lived in the building, not allowed to go out. If you wanted to eat, you just had to wait for the leftover food from that day’s catering to be sent from the canteen.)
Desperate, they looked for ways to seek help from authorities. “We emailed and DM’d Indonesian influencers, sending messages to both Indonesia and Philippines officials, police officers, including Ibu Retno Marsudi (Indonesia’s foreign minister),” the 27-year-old youth told Tempo on September 6, 2024.
Indonesia’s police coordinated with Philippine police to eventually rescue Rudi and his fellow human trafficking victims in the afternoon of Thursday, May 5, 2023.
Over 1,000 human trafficking victims from various countries were found in the sprawling Clark POGO hub that day. Apart from the Indonesians, other victims came from Vietnam, China, Nepal, Myanmar, Malaysia, Thailand, Bhutan, Hongkong, Morocco, and Taiwan.
Seeking justice
Rudi never heard anymore from the friend who recruited him.
To this day, he is still waiting for the legal process of his case in Philippine courts. “There is no legal process taking place in Indonesia, except when I get an online court invitation from the Philippines,” he said.
Not all victims are as lucky as Rudi.
Among the victims from Myanmar or Cambodia who managed to return or escape, many chose not to report their recruiters because they did not want to deal with law enforcement.
In July 2024, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. announced that he is banning POGOs due to their links with organized crime.
Marcos is expected to cancel the work visas of POGO employees by October 15. This is supposed to give them time to leave the Philippines without issue as their employers wind down operations.
After Guo was arrested and deported by Indonesian authorities, the Philippine Senate resumed its investigations into her involvement in POGO operations in Pampanga.
Whether these actions will ultimately address victimization similar to the one that Rudi experienced remains to be seen. – Rappler.com
*US$1 = 15,456.014 Indonesian Rupiah or P56.00
Artika Farmita is a journalist and fact-checker for Tempo.co, based in Surabaya, Indonesia. She is one of Rappler’s #FactsMatter Fellows for 2024
