Underground in plain sight?

Falling in love online. Dangerous business. You don’t know who’s on the other end anymore.

Could be a woman. Or a man. They could be 120 people in Makati.

The NBI raided an office on Ayala Avenue and arrested 120 people for a “love scam.” Chinese. Investigators said there were computers, scripts, employees pretending to fall in love with you, especially your wallet.

Some even coax victims to send nude photos they could later use to blackmail.

Imagine a victim. Let’s call him Bob. Every morning, Bob’s phone lights up. Schwing! “Good morning, baby.”

No one has called Bob “baby” since 2005. Wife’s been calling him an idiot for 20 years.

This woman? Beautiful, sweet, young; she asks if he’s eaten. Within three weeks, he’s telling his friends, “she’s different.”

Imagine Bob learning the truth, “who have I been talking to!?”

Maybe Monday it was Kevin. Tuesday, Dennis. Wednesday, Kevin again. Maybe that’s why she replied so fast. It was work, a job.

Thursday was Dennis, but “she” says, “sorry, baby, busy today.” Very busy. With thirty-nine other babies. So somebody from accounting said, “I miss you.” Friday, nobody replied. Team-building. Suddenly the whole relationship made sense.

“Baby, I’m tired.” Of course, you’re tired. You’ve been working since 9 a.m. Eastern. “Sorry I couldn’t reply. Meeting.” “I have to go.” End of shift. And, eventually: “Baby, I need money.”

There it is. Bob sends the money because Bob is in love. “Man, I gave her my heart, but she preferred cash.”

His friends tell him she’s a fake. The bank probably wants to tell him too. He knows it might be a scam. The first red flag is that she likes him. You’d laugh, but if somebody called you “handsome” three times, you’d be renovating her house in Leyte.

Imagine the office meeting. In Chinese.

“OK, everybody. Numbers are down. Romance is down 14 percent. Kevin, you’re very good at flirting. But your victims aren’t sending any money.”

“I’m building trust.”

“You’ve been building trust for four months, Kevin. This is business.”

And what if Kevin falls in love? Imagine getting fired from a love scam for falling in love.

The NBI said the ops are “POGO-like.”

One-hundred twenty arrests. That’s a lot of “good morning, baby.” Organized enough to require a workforce. How many babies were they handling? How many “I love yous” were coming out of that building every day?

How many victims do you need to keep 120 people busy? How much money was coming in that 120 workers were worth paying? Salaries, Makati rent, computers, internet. Somebody believed the victims would generate enough revenue to pay for all that.

And how do you hire for this? What was in the classifieds? Except they weren’t Filipinos. Now you have more questions. What were they told? Did they know? Were they brought here? Did they arrive one by one? In groups? Immigration, hello!?

Because 120 people don’t just appear in Makati. And remember this wasn’t some compound in Bamban. That’s what Tarlac taught us to look for. Gates and dormitories and guards; hundreds of foreigners. You walk past and think: “Something is going on in that piggery.”

This one? Ayala Avenue. Nobody walks past an office on Ayala and thinks, “Sextortion!”

A business permit tells you there’s a business. Doesn’t tell you what the hell the business is. That’s a crime now.

And what if 120 isn’t a lot? We hear 120 arrested and go, “Huge bust!” You have to ask whether we’re discovering an industry.

China has been cracking down hard on scammers. Arrests, raids, even stopping some people from leaving the country if authorities think they’re going abroad to scam people.

So China is making it harder over there. We banned POGO and supposedly made it harder over here. So they went underground and moved up to Ayala? Amazing hardship.