This pool photo taken on Jul 14, 2025 and released on Jul 16 by Agence Kampuchea Presse shows suspects with their hands zip-tied after being detained during a raid on a scam centre in Phnom Penh. (Photo: AFP)
PHNOM PENH: The Cambodian authorities have arrested more than 200 Vietnamese in internet scam centre raids, the police said on Wednesday (Jul 16), as Prime Minister Hun Manet ordered a crackdown on cybercrime sweatshops.
The United Nations (UN) has described Southeast Asia as the "ground zero" of scam centres, where workers typically use romance or business as a pretext to defraud social media users of an estimated US$40 billion yearly.
Hun Manet issued a directive made public on Tuesday, telling law enforcement and the military "to prevent and crack down on online scams", warning that they risk losing their jobs if they fail to take action.
The police in the capital Phnom Penh said that they raided two buildings housing scammers on Monday and Tuesday, arresting 149 Vietnamese alongside three Chinese citizens and 85 Cambodians.
In the coastal city of Sihanoukville, raids on Tuesday at four locations saw 63 Vietnamese arrested and 54 computers seized, a police report seen by AFP on Wednesday showed.
Many of those freed from Southeast Asian scam centres said that they were trafficked or lured there under false pretences.
Abuses in Cambodia's scam centres are happening on a "mass scale", a report published last month by the Amnesty International said.
There are at least 53 scam compounds in Cambodia where organised criminal groups carry out human trafficking, forced labour, child labour, torture, deprivation of liberty and slavery, the report stated.
In March, Cambodia deported 119 Thais – among 230 foreign nationals detained during raids on alleged cyber scam centres in the border city of Poipet.
The UN Office on Drugs and Crime warned in April that the scam industry was expanding outside hotspots in Southeast Asia, with criminal gangs building up operations as far as South America, Africa, the Middle East, Europe and some Pacific islands.
1 comment:
Human trafficking is a penalty of death, anything else should be 50 stripes to teach them a lesson.
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