The Department of Migrant Workers on Saturday said a total of 66 individuals filed criminal charges after acting as agents in recruiting Filipino workers seeking employment in South Korea’s seasonal workers program.

South Korea’s seasonal workers program greenlights Filipinos to have short-term employment to address labor shortages during the peak planting and harvesting season there.

“We have uncovered a broker system scheme. There are Korean agents there, and they have Filipino counterparts,” said DMW Officer-In-Charge Hans Leo Cacdac in a news conference in Quezon City.

According to Cacdac, brokers or intermediaries for recruitment in the seasonal worker’s program asked for excessive fees ranging from P20,000, P30,000 and P40,000 to as high as P100,000.

“We want to stop this broker system as the amounts charged by brokers, which can be as high as “one-fourth” of a worker’s earnings, were too expensive,” he said.