"Filipino mail-order brides trafficked to China: alarm in Philippines over links to Chinese organised crime"

A recent warning from the Philippines’ immigration agency regarding a new sophisticated scheme to traffic Filipino women to China as mail-order brides suggests a “concerning” connection to Chinese organised crime and trafficking syndicates, experts say...

Filipino women escorted by Chinese nationals posing as their husbands have been intercepted attempting to leave the country, immigration officials say...Their seemingly genuine marriage certificates – costing tens of thousands of pesos each – suggest corruption and the involvement of organised crime...

Jean Enriquez, executive director of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women – Asia-Pacific, told This Week in Asia that the marriage trafficking scheme could be connected to the surge in Chinese investments into Philippine offshore gaming operations (POGO)...

At its peak, the POGO industry employed around 300,000 Chinese workers in the Philippines... It has been linked to a slew of crimes and controversies, from cases of abduction, tax evasion and bribery to sex dens, prostitution rings, and torture chambers being uncovered by authorities.

A March 13 raid on a POGO compound in Tarlac province, around 100km north of Manila, uncovered a potential hub for love scams, with 373 Filipinos being rescued amid allegations of human trafficking and illegal detentions...In November, authorities also rescued 15 Filipino women – including five suspected to be underage – from an alleged prostitution den in Pasay City catering to Chinese POGO workers...