Sid blinked away tears as he stepped off the plane. The 26-year-old was greeted at the airport by his parents and younger brother, who he thought he might never see again. After a six-month ordeal that saw him held first by criminal gangs in Cambodia, then detained by local authorities, Sid finally returned home to South Asia in late October.
“I’m safely home,” he wrote in a recent message to VICE World News on WhatsApp. Sid requested the use of a pseudonym as he didn’t want to be stigmatized at home. “I have a feeling I just returned to my normal life. Just need familiar faces to forget all these things.”
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Sid is hoping to start anew, setting up a company of his own to offer services in fixing computers and installing CCTV cameras. But first, he has to pay off a bank loan his parents took to finance his trip to Cambodia and shake off the trauma that continues to haunt him.
Sid was one of thousands duped into joining Cambodia’s now-infamous scam industry, into which people from across Asia have been trafficked and forced to work in industrial-scale fraud centers. Rescued by Cambodian authorities in September, Sid alleges he was then exploited by immigration officials who extracted fees for bedding and food. He said he spent the few hundred dollars he had received as salary from the scam operations on these essentials.
He featured in an October VICE World News investigation in which testimony from five detainees, all rescued from Cambodia’s scam industry, and two human rights groups assisting them revealed how officers charged up to thousands of dollars in nebulous fees to secure their release. Photos also showed the dire conditions of their stay, including poor quality food and dozens of detainees lying on the floor in overcrowded cells.
Three of five detainees who spoke with VICE World News, all of whom had been held for at least a month, were released in the week that followed the story. People working close to the issue say that, upon hearing of the incoming media coverage, government officials ordered the hastened release of hundreds of foreign nationals and an end to taking bribes.
The report formed part of a chorus of domestic and international media coverage in recent months exposing the scale of Cambodia’s scam industry. Shamed into action, the Cambodian government has since September conducted a nationwide crackdown on what officials have euphemistically called “illegal gambling” operations, freeing thousands of workers.
As part of this, more than 40 Taiwanese victims were also released last month, among them a second detainee who featured in the VICE World News report. Sammy Chen, an adviser with the anti-human trafficking division of the Global Anti-Scam Organization, or GASO, a volunteer-run group that has been assisting trafficking victims, said officers didn’t hike up immigration fines with this group or demand bribes as they had been doing. Some were given temporary travel documents that allowed them to board their flights.
“It’s so good to be free. It’s like a weight has been lifted off my chest,” the freed detainee said in a message via Telegram, requesting anonymity for his safety. He was let go after paying $125 in fines for working without a permit. When he returned home, he got a haircut and saw his kids for the first time in almost a year.
“I would not visit this country [Cambodia] ever again, whether it’s for a vacation or an invitation from a friend.”
A fourth detainee from Malaysia featured in the report was released last week. But the fifth detainee was still being held as of late October. He has not responded to more recent messages in November and it’s unknown if he remains in custody.
But critics say the government raids have only had a limited impact on the illicit industry, which continues to recruit from other sources and has relocated to more remote parts of the country as well as Laos and Myanmar, two other major hubs of scam activity.
“It was clear from the beginning that this crackdown would not be as broad as the government was making it out to be,” said the head of a nonprofit combating human trafficking in the region. He spoke to VICE World News on condition of anonymity to avoid reprisals from the Cambodian government.
“There are concerns that the effect is only temporary, as the few places that have been closed down will be reopening shortly, or that they are fragmented because they have had the opportunity to move people around.”
Continuing raids might have halted the operations of a handful of cybercrime compounds, but the root causes, including the corruption that allowed criminal syndicates to thrive and officers to exploit rescued victims, remain unsolved.
“What makes Cambodia unique is that there was an enabling environment created by authorities that really allows these criminal organizations to grow and prosper,” the head of the nonprofit said. Unlike Myanmar and Laos, where scam operations are hosted in areas largely beyond the reach of the central government, criminal gangs in Cambodia have been operating right under the noses of authorities. They have been facilitated by the alleged collusion of powerful elites right at the top of the ruling Cambodian People’s Party.
“Some of the compounds that were affected in Sihanoukville had been given advance notice to clear people out and it started moving people to different locations. By the time police arrived for inspections, most people were gone,” the nonprofit head said.
His observation is echoed by Chan Li-tse, a police officer dispatched by Taiwan to Cambodia in early September, who cited this as one of the biggest difficulties in aiding victims. Chan was in Cambodia on a tourist visa as Taipei and Phnom Penh don’t have formal diplomatic ties. Given his official capacity as an officer wasn’t recognized, he petitioned the Cambodian government for help the same way many victims’ families did: leaving comments on the Facebook page of Sar Kheng, Cambodia’s minister of the interior.
He successfully pressed Cambodian authorities into action, but oftentimes, victims had been moved elsewhere when officers arrived. “It’s hard for us to obtain their real-time location,” he told VICE World News.
Even those that have been rescued run the risk of being recaptured by the criminal syndicates. Both Chan the police officer and Chen the GASO volunteer witnessed a scene last month where several Chinese trafficking victims released from a temporary immigration center were immediately forced onto vehicles and taken away. VICE World News could not independently confirm who owned these vehicles.
Chan said Cambodian immigration officers responded to the commotion by pulling people in for questioning, but the episode highlighted the danger victims faced, even after they escaped.
“It is why we rented a bus to transport victims and arranged accommodation for them to ensure they were protected,” the Taiwanese officer said.
Intense international scrutiny—including the downgrading of Cambodia on the US’ Trafficking in Persons report in July—pushed senior government officials to finally acknowledge the industry’s existence. In late September, prime minister Hun Sen publicly addressed it for the first time, saying Cambodia was at risk of being labeled the “worst country in the world.”
In an ensuing crackdown, Cambodian authorities said in mid October they had inspected 10,000 locations and taken action against 127 illegal “gambling dens.” Keo Vannthan, a spokesperson of Cambodia’s immigration department, confirmed to VICE World News that 3,740 foreign nationals have been deported in relation to online gambling, illegal border crossing, and working without permits from the beginning of the year to Oct. 22.
But observers say raids are only concentrated in Phnom Penh and Sihanoukville, and represent a fraction of industry as a whole. Scam operations continue on Cambodia’s borders with Thailand and Vietnam, as well as the resort town of Dara Sakor, while other trafficking rings have relocated to Laos and Myanmar, according to local outlet VOD, where they can operate more freely.
One Indian trafficking victim, communicating with VICE World News in mid-October via a friend seeking help, described in real time being moved from Kampot in southern Cambodia to the capital Phnom Penh. He was told he and others would be taken to a scam operation in Laos. For reasons that aren’t known, he was eventually released and sent to cross the Thai border on his own, before safely returning home.
“Many criminal syndicates simply moved their operations to hotels, where they’re just lying low until the campaign is over,” GASO volunteer Chen said. “They aren’t abandoning the operations, as they have become such an important source of income.”
Though the Cambodian government says they’ve caught more than 273 suspects over “gambling offenses” and are collecting evidence to prosecute them, the structures and syndicates behind the operations are largely untouched. Authorities have not announced the prosecution or investigation of anyone involved in the management of any of these facilities, or seized any of the huge sums flowing through Cambodia as a result of the fraud schemes, the nonprofit head said.
Chhay Kim Khoeun, the spokesman of Cambodia’s national police, did not respond to written queries about the charges brought against the suspects and the results of their crackdown. He hung up on the phone when VICE World News called.
In contrast, Taiwan has effectively clamped down on human trafficking rings operating in the country feeding syndicates in Cambodia and elsewhere. Jason Yeh from Taiwan police’s international criminal affairs division told VICE World News that authorities have arrested more than 300 suspects. This includes recruiters who lured people with fraudulent job offers, as well as those who arranged transportation and obtained passports for the workers.
“There are also victims who might have played multiple roles and helped recruit others,” he said. “Some were called out by other victims upon return. We are also investigating whether they were forced to commit crimes or willing accomplices.”
These efforts, along with widespread coverage in local media, have prevented more Taiwanese people from falling victim. The number of requests for help they received dropped from a height of 258 in July to single digits in September and October.
But recruitment efforts remain active online. On Facebook alone, there are more than two dozen Chinese-language groups still offering jobs in Cambodia as of this week. Many posts were dubious, offering unusually high pay for translation and customer service jobs. There are also signs the regional syndicates are now diversifying their sources, preying on people from countries such as India, Pakistan, Nepal, and even Ethiopia, where there is less awareness about this type of scam. As far away as Brazil, the government released a public warning last month after reports emerged of its citizens being held in Cambodia and Myanmar.
VICE World News was contacted by one would-be victim from Nairobi, Kenya, who was imminently set to fly to Thailand to undertake a customer service job in Laos offering high pay. He decided against going after learning about the risks of being trafficked, but not before he paid a recruiter 130,000 Kenya Shillings ($1,070), using money he borrowed from his sister.
The ordeal is “making me depressed since I have a family and all my hope was in getting a job which I thought was genuine,” said the Kenyan, who requested anonymity citing fears of being targeted for further scams.
All signs show that while weakened, these scam operations are far from cracking. Ending the cybercrime industry in Cambodia will require targeting the powerful gangs running the show, as well as government figures providing protection, says the nonprofit head.
“It would take something of that magnitude or real, concerted effort to break the back of the organizations and not just inflict minor wounds on them,” he said. “These criminal organizations have not been dealt any fatal damage, they’re waiting, they’re living for another day.”
Additional reporting by Alastair McCready and Alan Wong.
