AN internet gaming company, Zun Yuan Technology, Inc., denounced the raid conducted by elements of the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission and the Philippine National Police ON its headquarters in Bamban, Tarlac, on March 13.

The raid was carried out on the strength of two search warrants, issued by the Bulacan Regional Trial Court, for human trafficking and illegal detention, accusations the company denied.

A company spokesman, Jonathan Mendoza, said the operation came as a complete surprise, adding that Zun Yuan Technology has always maintained an open communication line with the government, especially law enforcement agencies, at the local, provincial, and national levels.

“In fact,” Mendoza pointed out, “the company had even hosted the PNP, particularly the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, and the PAOCC, on March 5, or a little more tan a week before the raid.”

According to the spokesman, the agents got to interact with company officials and watch employees demonstrate online betting during the visit, which lasted for hours.

“If someone was being trafficked and illegally detained, the operatives would have discovered the crimes right there and then,” Mendoza said. “They had been given a run of the place.”

The spokesman also deplored the manner by which the raid was conducted. He said the Bamban Police was kept in the dark, and there was no coordination made with the Regional Command in San Fernando, Pampanga, which had jurisdiction over Tarlac and all other provinces in Central Luzon.

Following the raid, officials of the company were allegedly denied entry into the building. They were allegedly prevented from conducting an inventory of computers and other high-value equipment, including a vault in which the company kept important documents and cash amounting to tens of millions of pesos.

All firearms confiscated in the operation were shotguns that belonged to a security agency. There were no assault rifles or high-caliber guns in the mix.

Mendoza said Zun Yuan Technology’s operation is aboveboard. It does business under a provisional Internet Gaming License issued by the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR) in October 2023.

He said the crimes that the inter-agency task force was supposed to stop did not exist at all.

All Filipino citizens and foreign nationals—mostly Chinese and Vietnamese—employed by the company were free to move around. Until the agents swooped down on them, they came and went as they pleased was no legal justification for the raid.

He said what the raid accomplished was to deprive people of their livelihood. Of those who lost their jobs as a result of the raid are 700 Filipinos, working as admin staffs, customer service representatives, security guards, and housekeepers with salary ranging from P20,000 to P35,000 a month.

Also adversely affected are owners of small restaurants, fruit stands, laundromats, and sari-sari stores in the immediate vicinity. Most of them have since closed down for lack of customers.