The police continue to issue announcements regarding last night's raid, with approximately 69 foreigners and 47 Filipinos detained by the police.
PCol stated that among the foreigners, there were 35 Chinese, 11 Indonesians, and 10 Malaysians.
"We have a complainant who said that a romance scam occurred on the 23rd floor of this building. It's like some others— they seek a relationship and eventually, they ask the victim to invest in cryptocurrency," said PCol Guillermo.
"This is related to the violation of Article 2. Under Section 6 of RA 10175, we were able to see and inspect the computers... We will extract all evidence found on mobile phones and devices. Then we will investigate who is responsible for this crime," he added.
The police stated that during the nearly 7-hour raid, no major bosses were caught, only employees were present.
In the police's preliminary report, such illegal activities have continued despite their licenses being revoked last November.
It is said that the establishment had been raided multiple times before.
Allegedly, they also targeted individuals from different countries through accounts they created.
"When you are Indonesian, it's like automatic, there's an automatic foreign language translator. First, it encodes in my language, then it automatically displays to anyone he is conversing with online. Now this is his script," said PCol Guillermo.
"It seems like the person you are talking to is local, but they are right here."
When the police took these foreigners to the Bagong Diwa camp for processing, they refused to make statements to the media.
"We are checking their detailed identities in the Philippines. If we find they have no documents, we will coordinate their status with the immigration bureau," said PCol Guillermo.
The police continue to forensically examine the computers and gadgets seized there.
Some residents were not allowed to enter the area initially, but employees of other companies operating within the building were allowed to leave.
The police closed the building until Wednesday morning. The Philippine National Police Anti-Cybercrime Group (PNP-ACG) raided a commercial and residential building along Adriatico Street in Manila on Tuesday night, believed to be the location of a scam center.
According to information shared by the police, personnel from PNP and PAGCOR issued a search warrant to a company around 9 PM.
It is alleged that this is related to the ongoing illegal online romance scams and cryptocurrency investment scams at that office.
