Xinyi Precinct of the Taipei City Police Department which is investigating the case. PHOTO: Google Maps
Xinyi Precinct of the Taipei City Police Department which is investigating the case. PHOTO: Google Maps

A 46-year-old Filipina domestic worker in Taiwan was arrested on Saturday for allegedly working for a syndicate that ran online romance scams, but police discovered she was also scamming the scammers.

The plot unfolded when a Taiwanese woman filed a report with the Taipei City Police Department after allegedly falling victim to the scam, The Liberty Times reported. Police went through CCTV footage in the neighborhood and discovered a foreign woman making withdrawals and sending remittances from the bank account linked to the scam via an ATM machine.

Police named the foreign woman as Filipino domestic helper Eva Alitio Cafe, who had worked in Da’an district in Taipei for four years.

On Saturday afternoon police arrested Cafe. Her mobile phone, an account passbook, a debit card, a remittance form and about NT100,000 (US$3,403) cash were seized.

The Filipina told police that earlier this month she met a German man living in Malaysia via Facebook. She was instructed by the man to withdraw a total of NT$192,000 ($6,533) from the account and send the money to him.

Cafe said that since she was poorly rewarded, getting only NT$400 for each remittance, she had only sent the man NT$62,000. Instead, she admitted, she had sent NT$30,000 to her family in the Philippines and kept NT$100,000 in cash for herself.

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