Hundreds of people dragged away suitcases, computer monitors, pets and furniture as they fled a suspected Cambodian cyberfraud center, after the country’s most-wanted alleged scam kingpin was arrested and deported.
Boarding “tuk-tuks,” Lexus SUVs and tourist coaches, an exodus departed Amber Casino in the coastal city of Sihanoukville, one of the illicit trade’s most notorious hubs.
“Cambodia is in upheaval,” one man said. “Nowhere is safe to work anymore,” he said on Thursday.
Photo: AFP
Similar scenes played out at alleged scam compounds across Cambodia this week as the government said it was cracking down on the multibillion-dollar industry.
Residents said many of the people working inside the tightly secured buildings moved out several days before the arrival of authorities.
From hubs across Southeast Asia, scammers lure Internet users globally into fake romantic relationships and cryptocurrency investments.
Initially largely targeting Chinese speakers, transnational crime groups have expanded operations into multiple languages to steal tens of billions annually from victims around the world.
Those conducting the scams are sometimes willing con artists, sometimes trafficked foreign nationals who have been trapped and forced to work under threat of violence.
Agence France-Presse (AFP) journalists visited several alleged Internet scam sites in Sihanoukville, in the wake of the high-profile arrest and extradition of internationally sanctioned accused scam boss Chen Zhi (陳志).
Few of those departing the casinos, hotels and other facilities were willing to speak with AFP, and none were willing to be identified due to concerns for their safety.
“Our Chinese company just told us to leave straight away,” one man said. “But we’ll be fine. There are plenty of other job offers.”
Studded with casinos and unfinished high-rises, the glitzy resort of Sihanoukville has become a cyberscam hotbed, where thousands of people involved in the black market are believed to operate cons from fortified compounds.
A 2025 Amnesty International report identified 22 scam locations in the coastal resort, out of a total of 53 in the country.
The UN Office on Drugs and Crime estimates global losses to online scams reached up to US$37 billion in 2023, and that at least 100,000 people work in the industry in Cambodia alone.
However, the Cambodian government claims the lawless era has come to an end, with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet pledging on Facebook to “eliminate... all the problems related to the crime of cyber scams.”
Cambodia’s anti-scam commission said it has raided 118 scam locations and arrested about 5,000 people in the past six months.
China has stepped up its pursuit of the scam industry, sweeping up Chen and other key figures from across Southeast Asia to try them on its own soil.
However, while Cambodia said it is “cracking down,” there are suspicions over the timing.
A tuk-tuk driver in Sihanoukville said hundreds of Chinese people left one compound before police arrived.
“Looks like they were tipped off,” the driver said.
Mark Taylor, former head of an anti-trafficking non-governmental organization, said the pre-emptive shifting of scam center resources, including workers, equipment and managers, had been seen ahead of law enforcement sweeps.
It was “seemingly the product of collusion,” he added, in a strategy with “dual ends” of boosting the government’s anti-crime credentials while preserving the scam industry’s ability to survive and adapt.
AFP journalists saw several coachloads of Mandarin speakers leaving Sihanoukville on the main highway to Phnom Penh.
Multiple people said they did not know where they were going or what their plans were, but appeared anxious as they anticipated law enforcement closing in.
The Bolivian government on Friday struck a deal with protesting miners, but was still grappling with blockades and demonstrations by other workers across La Paz. Other groups are still blocking access roads into the city, which is also the seat of the government. Police on Thursday prevented the miners from entering the main square by using tear gas, while the demonstrators hurled stones and explosives with slingshots. Protests against the policies of Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz have convulsed the Andean nation since early this month, and roadblocks were choking routes into La Paz throughout Friday, the national road authority said. Miners demanded that Paz
The Philippines said it has asked the country’s Supreme Court to allow it to arrest former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s chief drug war enforcer to stand trial in an international tribunal. The International Criminal Court (ICC) last week unsealed an arrest warrant against Philippine Senator Ronald dela Rosa, accusing him along with Duterte and other “coperpetrators” of the “crime against humanity of murder.” Dela Rosa briefly sought refuge in the Philippine Senate last week while asking the Philippine Supreme Court to stop an ongoing attempt by government agents to arrest him. “By his own conduct, he has placed himself outside the protection of
A ship anchored off the United Arab Emirates (UAE) was seized and taken toward Iran and another — a cargo ship near Oman — sank after being attacked, authorities said on Thursday, as tensions escalated near the Strait of Hormuz. It was not immediately clear who was behind these incidents, but they happened as a senior Iranian official reiterated his country’s claim of control over the waterway and another said it had a right to seize oil tankers connected to the US. The turmoil in the strait has been a sticking point for weeks in talks between the US and Iran to
The researchers in Ireland looked at their computer screen, marveling at a medieval book tracked down in a Roman library. They flipped through its digitized pages and found their sought-after treasure: the oldest surviving English poem. “We were extremely surprised. We were speechless. We couldn’t believe our eyes when we first saw that,” said Elisabetta Magnanti, a visiting research fellow at Trinity College Dublin’s school of English. The poem was also within the main body of Latin text, she said, calling it “extraordinary.” Composed in Old English by a Northumbrian agricultural worker in the 7th century, Caedmon’s Hymn appears within some copies of
RSS