Cambodia arrests 1,000 in cyberscam crackdown

Phnom Penh – The Cambodian authorities have arrested more than 1,000 people in raids on internet scam centres, the police said on July 16, as Prime Minister Hun Manet ordered a crackdown on cybercrime sweatshops.

The UN has described South-east Asia as the “ground zero” of scam centres, where workers typically use romance or business cons to defraud social media users of around US$40 billion (S$51.4 billion) annually.

Mr Hun Manet issued a directive, made public on July 15, 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.

Over three days, the authorities raided sites across the country, including in the capital Phnom Penh, the Thai border city of Poipet and the coastal city of Sihanoukville. Just over 1,000 suspects were detained, according to police reports, announced late at night on July 16.

The vast majority of the reported arrests were foreign nationals – including at least 271 Indonesians, 213 Vietnamese and 75 Taiwanese.

Many of those freed from South-east Asian scam centres say they were trafficked or lured there under false pretences.

Abuses in Cambodia’s scam centres are happening on a “mass scale”, Amnesty International said in a report published in June. 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 said.

In March, Cambodia deported 119 Thais – among 230 foreign nationals detained during raids on alleged cyberscam centres in Poipet.

The UN Office on Drugs and Crime warned in April that the scam industry was expanding outside hot spots in South-east Asia, with criminal gangs building up operations as far as South America, Africa, the Middle East, Europe and some Pacific islands. AFP