Inside the Philippine detention hub holding foreign scam workers awaiting repatriation
Foreign nationals rescued from large-scale online-scam rings are being held in a former compound turned detention center, where they await tickets home.
In response to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.'s July 2024 ban on scam operations, Philippine authorities raided numerous illegal online-fraud sites, rescuing hundreds of foreign workers who had been trafficked or deceived into scamming. The Nasdake building, a six-storey former scam compound seized in 2023, now functions as a government-run detention center overseen by the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission, the Department of Justice and the Bureau of Jail Management.
While it once held more than 900 people, the facility currently contains roughly 70 detainees from countries including China, Vietnam, Malaysia and Madagascar, many awaiting repatriation tickets. Former mayor Alice Guo, implicated in establishing the Bamban compound, received a life sentence for human trafficking, and other operators face money-laundering charges. Former detainees like Wind and Jade describe extreme violence, such as beatings and forced dental extraction, used to compel participation in complex online scams. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights estimates the global scam workforce exceeds 300,000 people across 66 nations.
Why it matters
It reveals the scale of human-trafficking-linked online fraud and the challenges of repatriating victims.
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