The Philippine National Police Anti-Cybercrime Group (PNP-ACG) has raised alarm over the growing involvement of Filipinos in online scams, many of whom are believed to be former workers of Philippine offshore gaming operators (Pogos).
In an Inquirer.net report, PNP-ACG Director Brig. Gen. Bernard Yang revealed that many of those arrested for cybercrimes had previously been employed by Pogos and have since gone independent. “We can no longer say it’s still linked to Pogos. Our fellow citizens have learned. They’re doing it by themselves,” he said during the Kapihan sa Manila Bay discussion.
According to Yang, most of those apprehended were Filipinos, with only seven foreign nationals among them. However, he did not provide the exact number of Filipino suspects.
Between December 2024 and June 20, 2025, the PNP-ACG arrested 608 individuals for cybercrime offenses, with 116 of them convicted. The violations range from the illegal sale of pre-registered SIM cards, as prohibited under the SIM Registration Act (RA 11934), to breaches of the Anti-Financial Account Scamming Act (RA 12010), and the Access Devices Regulation Act (RA 8484).
Authorities had earlier disclosed that former Pogo workers were able to recover and reuse or sell devices from scam hubs after operations shut down. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. cited the chaos caused by these illegal activities in his State of the Nation Address last July 2024, where he declared a total ban on Pogos in the country.
