The interior minister warned provincial authorities against colluding with organized crime as he revealed he had received a peak of 10 human-trafficking complaints daily in August before scam crimes spread across the country.
The Taiwanese government is still seeking the return of nearly 300 more people, a government-controlled news agency said this week. A record number of journalists are currently detained worldwide, per a new press freedom report.
The anti-cybercrime police said it was investigating complaints of fraud against a football-themed investment that allegedly lured people to send money before cutting off their withdrawals, and urged caution around online investments.
Interior Minister Sar Kheng acknowledged that the syndicates trafficking workers into Cambodia also appear to be conducting fraud, alluding to operations that have been revealed for months in media reports.
Interior Minister Sar Kheng acknowledged the buying and selling of foreign workers, plus violence and forced labor, at Cambodian compounds after police responded to 600 calls for help across at least 10 provinces.
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.
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.
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.
Under the cover of heavy rain last night, 10 rescued scam workers fled an immigration center in Phnom Penh, as a resident of another of the capital’s facilities spoke of bug bites and paying “tips” to police and said: “One nightmare ended, another began.”
Hundreds of foreign nationals have been removed from Phnom Penh compounds as police acknowledged detention, torture, extortion and human trafficking in several arrests.
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