FBI working with PHL authorities to take down scam centers

THE US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on Wednesday said that it has been coordinating with several Philippine agencies such as the Philippine Anti-Organized Crime Commission for their crackdown on scam centers in Southeast Asia.

In a virtual press briefing, FBI Co-Deputy Director Andrew Bailey raised three threats that the agency has been trying to curb, namely nihilist violent extremism (NVE), fentanyl flows, and prevalence of scam compounds in Southeast Asia which they have coordinated with Philippine authorities.

“Our league at Manila coordinates closely with the Philippine Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission, the Bureau of Immigration, the National Bureau of Investigation, the Philippine Department of Justice to attack scam centers from that perspective,” Mr. Bailey said via Zoom.

He said that the FBI has been using strategic intelligence approaches on investigating the scam centers in the region and identifying hidden networks that lure workers into debt bondage, noting that they have been trying to obtain evidence that the compounds are related to transnational criminal organizations.

Mr. Bailey said the FBI also earlier coordinated with Philippine authorities regarding a case of NVE involving 21 minors plotting violence.

“That critical intelligence identified juveniles exhibiting indicators of violent extremist behavior,” he said. “Those aren’t statistics, those are lives saved and families protected and potential victims who will never know how close they came to tragedy.” — Kaela Patricia B. Gabriel