Cambodian authorities have arrested more than 1,000 people in raids on cyber-scam compounds.
The suspects were arrested in raids in at least five provinces between Monday and Wednesday, according to statements from Information Minister Neth Pheaktra and police.
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet issued a directive made public on Tuesday, telling law enforcement and the military “to prevent and crack down on online scams”, warning they risk losing their jobs if they fail to take action.
Since the pandemic, Cambodia has been plagued by the rapid spread of cyber-scam operations – many of them run by Chinese organised crime groups. Inside compounds ranging from individual flats to sprawling, multibuilding affairs, an international army of scammers is forced to run global romance and business cons that have bilked unwitting victims out of billions of dollars.
Most of those employed are lured in with promises of good jobs, only to face torture or even death if they try and escape. The UN estimates that more than 100,000 people are enslaved in Cambodia alone, part of a wider landscape in Southeast Asia responsible for an estimated $40bn stolen annually.
Those detained included more than 200 Vietnamese, 27 Chinese, and 75 suspects from Taiwan and 85 Cambodians in the capital Phnom Penh and the southern city of Sihanoukville. Police also seized equipment, including computers and hundreds of mobile phones.
At least 270 Indonesians, including 45 women, were arrested Wednesday in Poipet, a town on the border with Thailand notorious for cyber-scam and gambling operations, the minister said. Elsewhere, police in the northeastern province of Kratie arrested 312 people, including nationals of Thailand, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Myanmar and Vietnam, while 27 people from Vietnam, China and Myanmar were arrested in the western province of Pursat.
While the crackdown is the latest in a series of mass arrests, many critics have accused the government of doing too little to prevent their spread, alleging corruption and insider dealing. The US government in September imposed sanctions on tycoon Ly Yong Phat, a close associate of the prime minister and his family, over allegations of forced labour and cyber-scams.
Last month, Amnesty International released a report accusing the Cambodian government of “deliberately ignoring a litany of human rights abuses including slavery, human trafficking, child labour and torture being carried out by criminal gangs on a vast scale in more than 50 scamming compounds located across the country”.
The government has routinely denied such claims, saying they are doing what they can.
Cambodia’s latest crackdown comes in the middle of a bitter feud with neighboring Thailand, which began with a brief armed skirmish in late May over border territory claimed by both nations and has now led to border closures and nearly daily exchanges of nationalistic insults. Friendly former leaders of both countries have become estranged and there have been heated debates about which nation’s cultural heritage has influenced the other.
Measures initiated by the Thai side, including cutting off cross-border electricity supplies and closing crossing points, have particularly heightened tensions, with Cambodia claiming it was retaliation for its intention to pursue its territorial claims. Thailand said its original intention was to combat long-running cyber-scam operations in Poipet.
