Converting latin1_swedish_ci to utf8 with PHP

I have a database filled with values like ♥•â—♥ Dhaka ♥•â—♥ (Which should be ♥•●♥ Dhaka ♥•●♥) as I didnt specify the collation while creating the database.
Now I want to Fix it. I cannot fetch the data again from where I got it from at the first place. So I was thinking if it might be possible to fetch the data in a php script and convert it to the correct characters.
I've changed the collation of the database and the fields to utf8_general_ci..