Amnesty says Cambodia is enabling brutal scam industry

By Poppy McPherson

BANGKOK (Reuters) -Human rights group Amnesty International accused Cambodia’s government on Thursday of "deliberately ignoring" abuses by cybercrime gangs who have trafficked people from across the world, including children, into slavery at brutal scam compounds.

The London-based group said in a report that it had identified 53 scam centres and dozens more suspected sites across the country, including the Southeast Asian nation's capital, Phnom Penh.

The prison-like compounds were ringed by high fences with razor wire, guarded by armed men and staffed by trafficking victims forced to defraud people across the globe, it said, with those inside subjected to punishments including shocks from electric batons, confinement in dark rooms, and beatings.

Amnesty said its findings revealed a "pattern of state failures" that allowed the billion-dollar industry to flourish, including failures to investigate human rights abuses, identify and assist victims, and regulate security companies and tools of torture.

“Deceived, trafficked and enslaved, the survivors of these scamming compounds describe being trapped in a living nightmare – enlisted in criminal enterprises that are operating with the apparent consent of the Cambodian government,” said Amnesty International’s Secretary General Agnes Callamard.

Amnesty said the Cambodian government did not respond to its list of scamming compounds or suspicious locations, and that the National Committee to Combat Human Trafficking shared "vague data on interventions at compounds, none of which clarified whether the state has identified, investigated or prosecuted individuals for human rights abuses other than deprivation of liberty.”

The Cambodian government did not immediately respond to a Reuters' request for comment about the report. Phnom Penh has said previously that it is tackling scam gangs and in January set up a taskforce headed by Prime Minister Hun Manet.

While Cambodia has overseen raids that have freed some trafficked workers, Amnesty said it found more than two-thirds of scam compounds were either not investigated by police or had continued to operate even after police interventions. Two compounds did appear to have been shut down, the group said.

During rescue efforts, police did not enter compounds but met representatives who handed over only the victim who had called for help, the group said, while some survivors were beaten by their bosses after trying to contact the police.

CHILDREN TRAFFICKED

Cambodia emerged during the pandemic as a hub for the global scam industry as mostly Chinese-led criminal groups repurposed unused casinos and hotels as scam centres housing as many as 100,000 people, according to the United Nations. Similar enclaves have flourished in Myanmar and Laos.

The industry in Cambodia now generates more than $12.5 billion annually – half of the country's GDP, according to the United States Institute for Peace.

Thailand and Cambodia have traded barbs over the scam issue in recent days as border tensions have heated up, with the Thai prime minister calling for a crackdown in Cambodia and another government official calling the country a hub for cybercrime.

The criminal gangs entice trafficking victims with fake job offers posted on social media and then force them to financially exploit people online including through fake romances or “pig-butchering” schemes in which the scammer builds trust with a victim before stealing their money, Amnesty said.

Nine out of 58 survivors interviewed by Amnesty were children, the group said, including a 16-year-old boy from China who was kicked and barred from leaving. Amnesty said it had confirmed the death of a Chinese child in one compound.

An 18-year-old Thai survivor told Reuters he was trafficked to a compound in Phnom Penh in 2023 and then, when he tried to leave, sold to another compound close to the Vietnamese border.  

The man, who asked not to be named, was forced to use deepfake video software to pose as an older attractive man to lure Thai women into handing over their money. After almost a year, he threw himself out of a window, injuring himself, and escaped after hiding in a hospital.

(Reporting by Poppy McPherson; Editing by Kate Mayberry)