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.
As police raids have hit known scam locations and “illegal gambling” dens across the country, residents of casino haven Bavet say they have seen buses ferrying in hundreds of workers over the last few weeks to existing casinos and alleged scam compounds in the border town.
Scam raids have continued in Sihanoukville but police are increasingly finding compounds largely emptied of workers, and are saying they are not finding evidence of crime.
Indonesian nationals rescued from a Phnom Penh scam compound say they were targeting Facebook users every day to cheat them out of thousands of dollars. Most are relieved to have gotten away from the criminal work and threat of violence that hovered over them.
Thousands of viewers have circulated a video online of a woman pleading in Khmer for rescue from forced labor at a Sihanoukville scam center.
Fifty-nine Thais were removed from scam operations in Cambodia in simultaneous raids on two compounds this week — including 40 from the Kandal facility where Vietnamese nationals last month made a dramatic escape swimming across a river, Thai police said Friday.
After months of authorities’ denials, Interior Minister Sar Kheng acknowledged foreign nationals had been trafficked into Cambodia and faced violent treatment.
Police say they didn’t find the four, whose rescues were requested by their embassy this month, in Koh Kong’s Union Development Group site.
Police are questioning two U.S. men and one Indonesian woman who last week said they had been detained at an online business.
The Federation of Khmer Chinese in Cambodia on Wednesday pushed back on recent media reports of rampant human trafficking linked to scams.
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