Four Chinese nationals were stopped from crossing from Preah Vihear into Laos this week, another cross-border case in the same location where 16 Chinese nationals were recently rescued from being trafficked across the border.
Amid targeted raids and arrests against scam and human trafficking operations in Cambodia, accounts from victims and a rescue group indicate that at least some syndicates are going to great lengths to relocate workers to a new country to evade capture.
Some 171 Vietnamese workers were rescued in Oddar Meanchey and returned to the country. A Hong Kong resident was safely returned from Cambodia after requesting help from the city’s immigration department.
Cambodia’s scam compounds conducted “illegal gambling” using a system that officials “do not understand,” Interior Minister Sar Kheng said, again skirting widespread accusations and evidence to support the presence of global scam operations in the country.
Three people have been arrested at airports in Phnom Penh and Thailand for allegedly kidnapping a colleague, stealing cash and transferring money from the victim’s phone, with a fourth suspect still at large.
Authorities have rescued 75 foreign nationals from a border town in Oddar Meanchey province following raids against online scam operations in Sihanoukville, Phnom Penh and elsewhere — though a local police official argued the work being done with forced labor was “normal.”
A 5.5-hour Interior Ministry press conference reviewed recent raids against the forced labor of foreign nationals, but officials continued to sidestep from naming compound owners and saying whether the syndicates perpetrated global scams.
Four people trapped in forced labor inside a central Phnom Penh condominium reached out to Interior Minister Sar Kheng for help, leading to a raid this week that removed 274 foreign nationals from the Boeng Keng Kang apartment building.
Dozens of foreign workers were taken from a central Phnom Penh condominium under heavy police presence and driven straight to the airport on Thursday.
Both Cambodian and foreign workers must be allowed to leave their workplaces after work, the Labor Ministry clarified during a press conference on Wednesday, while deflecting a question about the nature of global scams being perpetrated out of Cambodia.
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