Cambodian authorities this month have arrested nearly 400 Taiwanese and Chinese on suspicion of operating a telecom scam to defraud people in China, Cambodian police said yesterday.
The arrests are part of a regional crackdown as China battles telephone and Internet scams that have cost billions of US dollars in financial losses.
Scams have targeted everyone from the elderly, students and the unemployed, to businessmen involved in legal problems. Scammers based overseas often pose as government officials.
Phnom Penh police on Wednesday arrested 225 Chinese, including 25 women, suspected of an extortion scheme using Internet voice call technology, said Thou Saroeun, deputy director of the anti-terrorism police department.
“We are processing the case and we don’t know yet when this will move to deportation,” Thou Saroeun said without elaborating.
On Aug. 2, police arrested 151 Chinese and three Taiwanese in the provinces of Siem Reap and Banteay Meanchey, Cambodian General Department of Immigration chief of investigations Uk Heisela said.
Beijing authorities accuse Taiwan of harboring criminal gangs behind many of the scams that have targeted people in China.
Cambodia is one of China’s closest allies in Southeast Asia and does not recognize the government of Taiwan.
In recent years, it has deported more than 600 Chinese and Taiwanese to China after arresting them on suspicion of telecom scams.
Since 2011, Taiwan and China have cooperated in investigating telecom fraud in Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines and elsewhere. Thousands of suspects, many from Taiwan, have been arrested since.
Last month, police in Indonesia said that they had detained more than 150 Chinese accused of a scam that had brought them an estimated US$450 million by tricking victims into paying to make legal cases go away.
Some of the suspects arrested in Cambodia are to be sent to China this week, Uk Heisela said.
“I don’t know when exactly, that depends on when China sends a plane,” he said.
Last month, Cambodia deported 105 Chinese and Taiwanese suspects to China, prompting a protest from Taipei to Phnom Penh. Authorities in Taiwan have accused Cambodia of acting at China’s behest.
China has defended the deportations of Taiwanese to China from places like Cambodia by saying the victims were all in China and so the criminals should face justice there.
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