{"id":777005046,"date":"2023-05-09T13:47:00","date_gmt":"2023-05-09T16:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=777005046"},"modified":"2026-04-22T22:09:30","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T01:09:30","slug":"doj-and-pagcor-to-review-pogo-licences","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/doj-and-pagcor-to-review-pogo-licences","title":{"rendered":"DOJ and PAGCOR to review POGO licences"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The DOJ and PAGCOR will review POGO licences after a raid on a company allegedly involved in human trafficking and cyber fraud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>The Philippines.-&nbsp;<strong>The Department of Justice<\/strong>&nbsp;(DOJ) and the&nbsp;<strong>Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp.&nbsp;<\/strong>(PAGCOR) have announced a review of licences issued to<strong>&nbsp;Philippine offshore gaming operators&nbsp;<\/strong>(POGOs) following a raid on a business processing company suspected of illegal activities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The investigation aims to determine if the Colorful and Leap Group, located in the Clark Freeport Zone in Pampanga, was involved in internet scamming and if it employed victims of human trafficking. According to local media reports,&nbsp;the company allegedly forced at least <strong>1,090 foreign workers <\/strong>to work up to 18 hours a day&nbsp;under strict conditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On Saturday (May 6), DOJ assistant secretary<strong>&nbsp;Mico Clavano&nbsp;<\/strong>revealed that twelve employees of the company \u2013 seven Chinese, four Indonesians and one Malaysian \u2013 are being investigated by the DOJ for human trafficking, cybercrime, serious illegal detention, kidnapping, and immigration violations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The victims are believed to be from Vietnam, China, the Philippines, Indonesia, Nepal, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Women were allegedly forced to persuade customers to buy cryptocurrencies as well as to export money through propositions of romance. Male employees were allegedly made to pose as women to achieve the same goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Senate plans to conduct an inquiry into the alleged human trafficking and cyber fraud operations at the Clark Freeport Zone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>See also:&nbsp;<\/strong><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/43-people-rescued-from-gaming-operation-in-the-philippines\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">43 people rescued from gaming operation in the Philippines<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The DOJ and PAGCOR will review POGO licences after a raid on a company allegedly involved in human trafficking and cyber fraud.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":26756,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"The Philippine Department of Justice (DOJ) and PAGCOR are initiating a comprehensive review of all Philippine offshore gaming operator (POGO) licenses. This action follows a raid on Colorful and Leap Group in the Clark Freeport Zone, which is under investigation for alleged human trafficking, cyber fraud, and severe labor exploitation involving over a thousand foreign workers. The incident underscores heightened regulatory scrutiny and potential operational risks for the POGO sector.","focusai_entities":"Department of Justice (DOJ), Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (PAGCOR), Colorful and Leap Group, Mico Clavano, Senate","focusai_location":"Philippines, Clark Freeport Zone, Pampanga, Vietnam, China, Indonesia, Nepal, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand, Taiwan, Hong Kong","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (1.0), compliance_legal (1.0), operator_casino (0.9), investor_analyst (0.9), supplier_vendor (0.7), journalist_researcher (1.0)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"POGO License Impact","query":"What specific criteria will PAGCOR and the DOJ employ in their comprehensive review of POGO licenses, and what is the projected timeline for this re-evaluation process?"},{"label":"Regulatory Framework Gaps","query":"How will this incident influence the development of enhanced regulatory compliance and governance frameworks for POGOs, particularly concerning labor practices and anti-cybercrime measures?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[156,158,16333],"tags":[405,15789],"class_list":["post-777005046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-regulation-news","category-slider-home","category-south-east-asia-news","tag-pagcor","tag-pogos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777005046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/176"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=777005046"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777005046\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":777005062,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777005046\/revisions\/777005062"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=777005046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=777005046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=777005046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}