Three Filipinos who recently returned from Myanmar as victims of human traffickers were forced to live in the jungle and had to pay to be allowed to go home, the Bureau of Immigration (BI) said Thursday.

The victims, in their 20s to 40s, consist of two females and one male. They arrived in the Philippines on August 17 from Bangkok, Thailand.

All victims were assisted by the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking (IACAT) and the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA), the BI said.

One of the victims left the Philippines for the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in 2021 with her Pakistani fiancé and lived in Dubai with a spouse visa.

She saw a job advertisement on Facebook offering US$1,000 in monthly income with free food and lodging.

The woman traveled to Myanmar via Bangkok from the UAE. Upon her arrival in Thailand, she was fetched and traveled for 10 hours on a van before transferring to a fishing boat.

She said that she did not expect to work in Myanmar, as she was promised work in Thailand only.

The victim said she was made to work as a bitcoin scammer and had to pay 60,000 Thai Baht to be allowed to go home.

The second victim was a female who was recruited in a similar way and left as an overseas Filipino worker (OFW).

The male victim also revealed that they were kept in an enclosed location in the middle of a jungle and said he had to pay for his release.

In a statement, Immigration Commissioner Norman Tansingco urged aspiring overseas workers not to accept offers online to work abroad illegally.

“This is a big syndicate operating in several Asian countries,” he said.

“We are the first country to raise the alarm against this modus, and we aim to be the first to eliminate this in our country by helping arrest and jail the recruiters.”