MANILA, Philippines — Operatives of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) Friday swooped down a posh village in Pasig City and arrested at least eight foreign nationals allegedly being hunted by the Taiwanese government for alleged cyber crime.
But NBI-National Capital Region (NCR) chief lawyer Constantino Joson declined in an informal news conference to give the identities of the arrested suspects. He said that they have yet to establish if the suspects are indeed Chinese, or Taiwanese or Hong Kong nationals.
“We are in the process of determining the real identifies and nationalities of the arrested suspects.” Joson said.
He said they have to be very cautious in their investigation to avoid any lapses.
Joson said the NBI agents, who were armed with a search warrant issued by a Manila court, raided the house at 421 Valle Verde IV in Pasig City, at around 12 noon last Friday.
NBI agent Lawyer Eduardo Ramos, in an interview, said the arrest of the eight foreign nationals stemmed from the request of Taiwanese Economic Cultural Office (TECO) that several natives from Taiwan, who were wanted for cybercrimes, were in the country.
In a letter sent to the NBI last April, TECO Police Liaison Officer Bart Lee informed the bureau that at least 10 groups, made up of 5 or more persons, had illegally put up a call-center like stations in different posh subdivisions which were used to victimized Taiwanese nationals.
Ramos, citing the letter of TECO, said that the foreign syndicates had transferred their operations in the country from different Southeast Asian countries due to the country's lax law enforcement.
“The information we received further stated that the group were allegedly involved in different cyber crimes like cyber sex and online lottery fraud among others,” he told the Manila Bulletin.
But even before they received the tip from TECO, Joson said that they had place the said residence under surveillance for three months already.
According to Joson, they were initially tipped by informants about the presence of the suspects in the area under very suspicious conditions.Source:- http://www.mb.com.ph