'POGOs now using resorts, restaurants as fronts'

Resorts and restaurants are becoming the "biggest disguise" of some Philippine offshore gaming operators as these establishments are used by POGOs as fronts for crime, Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla said yesterday.

Local officials should regularly visit establishments within their jurisdiction to help stop illegal POGOs, Remulla said.

"The biggest disguise that they are going through now is that they are applying as resorts and restaurants. It is the power of the mayor to visit the establishments and make sure that what is going on is exactly what is intended," he noted.

At the Commission on Appointments' confirmation proceedings, Sen. Risa Hontiveros asked Remulla about the implementation of President Marcos' order to ban POGOs.

Recent activities of the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission (PAOCC) showed some POGOs have turned to guerrilla operations, Remulla noted.

"The last case in Lapu-Lapu (Cebu) showed it very clearly, that when the PAOCC raided the premises, the restaurants, hotel and bar were just a front and then it is a guerrilla operation," he said.

"I believe it transferred the one in Porac and hid there in Lapu-Lapu." At least 132 foreigners were rounded up in a suspected POGO hub or scam farm in Lapu-Lapu City in Cebu on Aug. 31.

Intelligence and special units of the Philippine National Police and National Bureau of Investigation are tasked with probing scam hubs, especially fronts without business permits, Remulla said.

POGO front

Authorities yesterday returned to a raided business process outsourcing (BPO) firm in Bataan in search of evidence that it is actually a POGO hub.