CEBU, Philippines — The National Bureau of Investigation Central Visayas Regional Office (NBI-CEVRO) revealed that the three recovered passports found in one of the vaults opened last September 26, 2024 are not linked to the 169 foreign nationals rescued from the suspected Philippine Offshore Gaming Operator (POGO) hub in Lapu-Lapu City.
While the operatives did not divulge the names of the passport holders, they have disclosed that the three are male Indonesians of legal age.
With this, NBI-CEVRO regional director Atty. Rennan Augustus Oliva said that they are now coordinating with the Bureau of Immigration (BI) and Indonesian Embassy to request their “status in the country.”
“Those three male Indonesians do not belong to those that we rescued, as well as those that we charged,” said Oliva.
When asked if they can be considered as missing, Oliva said that “anything is possible” noting that these Indonesians may have applied for a replacement passport and left the country.
Oliva doesn’t want to speculate but stressed that they are coordinating with the different agencies concerned to know the whereabouts of the three as soon as possible.
It can be recalled that the first Indonesian nationals who reported that a POGO was operating in Lapu-Lapu City revealed that their passports were confiscated from their POGO employers.
The foreign nationals reported that their passports were taken from them so they cannot freely get out of the country and if they want to get back their passports, they are obliged to pay $2,000.
Meanwhile, exactly 241 mobile phones were also recovered in the recently-opened vaults retrieved from the POGO hub. The cell phones, together with the computers, will be subjected to warrant of disclosure in computer data.
“Whatever evidence we get inside, we can use as additional charges for qualified trafficking, money laundering, the different scams, the illegal gambling, the POGO and the security scam,” said Oliva.
Executive officer for operations of NBI-CEVRO, Atty. Wenceslao Galendez, also explained that the POGO operators may have seen the need to secure the mobile phones in the vault as it may contain “proceeds of their illegal activities.”
“We believe that they secured the cellphones inside the vault because it contains vital information…it may contain proceeds of their illegal activities,” said Galendez.
Though they have not yet conducted any further investigation, operatives believe the cellphones contained e-wallets or money in the form of local remittances here in the country.
Galendez disclosed that they have already coordinated with one of the local remittances, who advised NBI-CEVRO to preserve the mobiles phones and recovered sim cards.
“It’s a long process but we will coordinate with the court and we will obtain the necessary warrant for the examination of those devices,” said Galendez.
Further, the NBI-CEVRO also believes that the phones are still subject for “harvesting” or it is still subject to withdrawal or transfer to another account.
“Based on our previous investigations, we found out that they conducted layering so from one account they transferred it to another account. To hide the destination account,” he added.
The mobile phones recovered were used as “company phones” and were utilized for their scamming activities. (CEBU NEWS)