NEARLY 500 individuals, including eight Israeli nationals, were arrested during a raid Wednesday morning, June 6, on a call center allegedly engaged in online fraud in Clark Freeport Zone in Angeles City, Pampanga.
PNP chief Oscar Albayalde said operatives from the PNP Anti-Cybercrime Group (ACG) simultaneously swooped down on three sites that house the different departments of International Brandings Development Marketing, Inc. (IBD), a supposed call center which operates 24/7 with over 500 Filipino employees.
The offices raided were the 4th Floor of Regus Building Clark Berthaphil 3 in J. Abad Santos Avenue; Quality Assurance and Customer Service at the Building 1 along Clark Center Avenue, corner Navarro Avenue, and IBD Retentions at the 2nd Floor of GMS Building Manunggal St.
A case for the violation of “Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012” in relation to Article 315 (Syndicated Estafa) of the Revised Penal Code is being readied for filing against those arrested.
With this, the Clark Development Corporation (CDC) cancelled the Certificate of Registration and Tax Exemption (CRTE) of the business process outsourcing firm Thursday.
The CRTE is a business registration allowing the firm to operate inside Clark Freeport. IBD is registered as BPO firm and a sub lessor of CDC. It is a lessor of Berthaphil Inc.
IBD Marketing, Inc., has been operating in Clark since November 2017 with committed investments of P11.1 million and actual workers of 527.
IBD Marketing, Inc. is duly registered at the Security Exchange Commission on July 2016 with permit to operate on an inbound and outbound customer service support; back office work; technical support; web design; and search engine optimization.
Albayalde said the raid stemmed from complaints of Australian nationals Jan Theresa Bedggood, Robert Wayne Smith and Juningsih Welford and South African national Barend Nicholaas Prinsloo who said that the group took hundreds of dollars from their account in the guise of an online stocks trading investment.
Bedggood said they were initially enticed to invest AU$250 in bitcoins and they later on received a call from one of the agents of the IBD, who encouraged her to invest more in the stocks to gain more interest.
She said they were asked to make an account in a website and enter their account information.
Welford said they did not doubt at first because their accounts showed that the money they have invested was gaining interest.
“But when I try to withdraw my money, I couldn’t and I could no longer contact them,” she said.
At least a total of AU$100,000 were stolen from the victims' accounts.
PNP-ACG director Marni Marcos said the victims went to the Philippines to personally seek the assistance of the police after one of the Filipino employees of the IBD contacted their victims and told them about the scam and their operations in the country “out of conscience.”
During the raid, eight male Israeli nationals were arrested while in the act of managing the three target buildings while 232 male and 242 female Filipinos were caught in the act of communicating and doing online transactions with foreign “clients” from Europe, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and Russia.
Marcos said forensic examiners of ACG were able to extract several digital evidence from all the computers of IBD from the locations which may prove their involvement in fraudulent online trading activity.
He said the accounts of the complainants were also extracted from the Quality Assurance and Customer Service computers which will strengthen the allegation imputed against IBD by the complainants.
He said the suspects have been in the country operating their illegal business for 2 years and a half already. The police are now coordinating with the Interpol and Europol for the identification of the Israeli nationals.
Albayalde said the PNP also failed to recover any business permit from any of the raided buildings which prompted them to investigate the possible liability of the Clark Freeport Zone management.
“Bago ka makapag-establish ng business sa Freeport you have to have a business permit. So that will now be investigated kung sinasabi ni director ACG kung bakit wala silang na-recover na business permit,” he said.
“So that will be a part of the investigation and verify natin kung bakit sila na-allow na ganun katagal and yet ganito ang ginagawa nila. That's one thing kung wala silang business permit, that's very questionable kung papaano ka makapag establish ng big call center doon na with this number of employees,” he added.
Marcos said they will coordinate with other concerned local and international agencies to determine the extent of the company’s operation.
CDC said it is now monitoring BPO companies inside Clark to prevent similar incidents. (SunStar Philippines/with reports from Reynaldo G. Navales)