Nearly 500 people have been arrested for being allegedly involved in an online investment fraud that victimised people overseas, including in Australia and South Africa, Philippines police said on Thursday.

Those arrested included eight Israeli nationals.

In one of the Philippines' biggest anti-cybercrime busts in years, police chief Oscar Albayalde said 474 Filipino employees and the Israelis were taken into custody following the raid on three buildings in Clark Freeport, a former US Air Force base north of Manila, where the alleged online fraud was committed.

Chief Superintendent Marni Marcos, who heads the national police's Anti-Cybercrime Group, alleged the suspects lured victims into investing in foreign stocks in a purportedly flourishing London-based company then took their money through an online app after obtaining their bank account and credit card details.

The Israeli men were arrested "while in the act of managing, operating and manning the three target buildings" while the Filipinos "were caught while in the act of communicating and doing online transactions with foreign clients from Europe, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and Russia," Albayalde said in a statement.

Police video showed policemen, backed by special forces, and armed with assault rifles, barging into a vast office and repeatedly yelling "hands up" while ordering some of the suspects not to touch their computers.

Some of the Israelis could be seen being led away in handcuffs.

Police seized evidence from the computers of the suspects, which proved that they were "engaged in a fraudulent online trading activity that involves millions of U.S. dollars victimising other foreign nationals all over the world," Albayalde said.

State prosecutors were assessing criminal complaints to be filed against the suspects.

Some foreign victims travelled to the Philippines and reported to the police details of the alleged fraud after obtaining information from some disgruntled syndicate members, Marcos told reporters.