[Cambodia][China]A direct look at a Cambodian internet scamming den, a "China Town" in Sihanoukville that scams people into scamming
Lianhe Zaobao, Lin Huizhi, Sihanoukville 2022-06-19 05:00
Cambodia, a Southeast Asian country that has seen rapid economic growth for two decades, is another promising growth area for the region, but in recent years it has also become a hotbed for Chinese-speaking telecom scams. Except for Chinese nationals, there have been rumours in recent months that nationals from Southeast Asian countries have also been tricked into working in Sihanoukville, Cambodia, for high salaries.
Upon arrival, they were shocked to discover that the jobs advertised as cookers, traders and personnel specialists were all fronts, and that the real job was an online scam. A Zaobao reporter visited Sihanoukville in May this year and contacted one of the scammed workers to uncover the dark side of the scam for our readers.
When you walk along the famous Otres Beach in Sihanoukville, Cambodia, you feel like you are in a resort with a beautiful view of the sea and sky, but as soon as you turn around, the beautiful scenery disappears. Less than 200 metres away from the beach is the infamous "China Town", the base of a scam ring in Sihanoukville.
China Town is one of the largest parks in Sihanoukville, consisting of more than 20 buildings of about 10 storeys high, which look like very ordinary commercial buildings. However, the park is surrounded by a high wall and barbed wire fence, making it invisible from the outside and almost isolated from the rest of the world. There are only two entrances to the park, each guarded by armed guards, and closed-circuit television is ubiquitous.
There are restaurants, clinics, hairdressers, karaoke bars and other services, but most of them are only open to park staff. The shops on the ground floor of the building have locked doors facing the street, and the few shops that are open to the public are divided in two by iron grilles, separating people from those inside and outside the park.
A local resident of Sihanoukville, who is familiar with the operation of the park, told Zaobao that there are more than 30 parks like China Town in Sihanoukville, which operate under the name of "Digital Industry Investment Park" or "Economic and Trade Centre", but in reality mainly deal with online gambling and fraud. In fact, they mainly operate as online gambling and fraudulent businesses. The parks vary in size, but are all closed and heavily guarded, not only to deter trespassing, but also to prevent staff from escaping.
Originally targeting mainland Chinese, the outbreak has spread to Southeast Asia and Taiwan.
The fraud syndicates that have moved into the park have mainly targeted Chinese people, so most of the staff are from mainland China. However, in order to prevent the epidemic, mainland China has tightened its control over the departure of staff in the past two years, and the fraudsters are facing a "human resources dilemma", so they have expanded the scope of recruitment and started to focus on Chinese people in Southeast Asia and Taiwan who can read and write Chinese.
In the past three months alone, at least 130 victims from Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia have been rescued from the park. Some reports suggest that thousands of people are still trapped in the park to work.
Lee Wai Hong (pseudonym, 26) from Malaysia is one of the part-timers who was tricked into working in one of the parks in Sihanoukville. He arrived at the end of December last year and was trapped for four months before being rescued in April this year in a telephonic interview with the Zaobao newspaper.
Lee Wai hong was introduced to Sihanoukville by a former colleague and thought he was joining an online gaming company. His former colleague said he was paid about US$4,000 (about S$5,560) a month, plus commission, and was provided with food and accommodation and a return flight. Li said, "I thought the pay and benefits were good, so I decided to give it a try."
Upon arrival, the company confiscated Li Weihong's passport on the grounds that he was going through visa and induction procedures. "They asked me to sign an entry contract, but the terms on the contract were completely different from what they had said before. The salary was only US$1,000 and the working hours were increased from eight to 12 hours a day."
What shocked him the most was that he was not engaged in online gambling, but as an online scammer.
The scam industry in Sihanoukville is diverse and Li Weihong was placed in an online investment scam ring that specialises in scamming Chinese people. A group of 10 people would find their "prey" through communication platforms such as WeChat and QQ, and then lure them into using the company's app to "invest".
Li Weihong said that the company would first let the victim taste the sweetness and feel the thrill of making money, and when the victim invested a large sum of money, the company would block the account and roll away all the money.
In order to increase credibility, Li Weihong and other scammers will also direct their own performances, according to the company's daily "scam talk" script sent out to interact with victims, step by step to lure them into the tiger's mouth. Li Weihong said, "We were responsible for 50 to 100 mobile phones, and our daily job was to 'fire up the group' through fake accounts to make the group look active."
In just three months, Li Weihong's group defrauded at least 30 people, involving an amount of 2 million yuan (about S$410,000).
Li Weihong said there were hundreds of scammers working with him at the park, mostly from China. All were restricted from moving around the park, and the guards in charge of guarding it were armed with guns, batons and electric batons. "If they were caught leaving the park, they would be beaten and tasered."
The company's supervisors also physically punish staff for poor performance and poor work ethic, including punishing them for climbing stairs, running the playground and copying fraudulent phrases. Those who are clever at scamming and have a significant "turnover" are rewarded with a large sum of money.
Unwilling to be used as a tool to scam people, Lee Wai-hong asked to leave the company in early April this year. He was asked to pay US$55,000 (about S$76,400) in compensation before the company would let him go.
Lee then secretly asked his family for help through a face book. His family then contacted the Global Anti-Scam Organisation (GASO) and reported the case to the Malaysian police before they were able to get him out of trouble.
The voluntary organisation has rescued at least eight people in the past year
The Global Anti-Scam Organisation (GASO) has managed to rescue at least eight workers, including three Malaysians and five Chinese, who were trapped in the Sihanoukville Park in the past year.
GASO, based in Singapore, is a group of more than 80 volunteers from around the world who aim to provide support to victims of online fraud, and many of the GASO volunteers have been victims of online fraud.
A spokesperson for GASO, which is responsible for coordinating the rescue operation, revealed in an interview that after receiving a request for help from Li Weihong's family, they first contacted Li Weihong and asked him to send location information and a sneak peek of the company in order to find out where he was. To ensure that the fraud syndicate did not find out, GASO and Li Weihong had to wait until late at night to make contact and delete the calls after each conversation.
As the information provided by Lee Wei Hong was sufficient, the location was quickly pinpointed by Cambodian law enforcement units after GASO submitted the information to the Malaysian Embassy in Cambodia.
However, the fraudsters got wind of the scam before the police could launch a rescue operation and put Lee Wei Hong in a "dark room" to extract a confession. This refers to a secluded room in the park, which is guarded throughout the day and where the detainees are not allowed to eat, drink or sleep.
Fortunately, Li Wei Hong was rescued by the Cambodian police the day after he was imprisoned. Although the police came to his door, this did not affect the operation of the fraudulent company and his "colleagues" continued to scam without any knowledge.
From the time his family reported the case to the time he was rescued, it took about a week, which was very smooth.
GASO said that rescue operations are often subject to variables, especially if the victim's family is unwilling to cooperate, which can make it difficult. For example, some countries require families to report cases in person before the embassy in Cambodia will help, but some victims are estranged from their relatives and do not communicate with them. In addition, flights between Cambodia and some countries have plummeted in the wake of the outbreak, making it impossible to buy tickets back home even after being rescued.
They have to find a place to stay or go into hiding after being rescued," said a GASO spokesperson. Kidnapping is common in the area and if they run around, the chances of being kidnapped and sold back to the park are very high."
A source familiar with the "market" for human trafficking in Cambodia revealed that the price for abducting labourers for scam groups has now risen to around $25,000.
Other syndicates have been known to "sell" a caller to another park when they find out he has been reported to the police, so that he disappears from the original network of contacts and is not found by the rescuers. The payout for victims who have been 'resold' goes up as they get out.
Fraud syndicates move to places like Dubai and northern Myanmar
It is understood that as China and Cambodia work together to step up their crackdown, some of the scams have moved their base to northern Burma and Dubai.
The "Chinese scamming the Chinese" in Sihanoukville has attracted the attention of the Chinese government. In 2019, China and Cambodia established the China-Cambodia Law Enforcement Cooperation Coordination Office to improve the efficiency of law enforcement cooperation between the two countries in combating transnational crime. In August of the same year, Chinese police sent two passenger planes to transport 150 suspected telecoms network fraudsters from Cambodia to China for trial, 132 of whom were arrested in Sihanoukville. The Global Anti-Fraud Group believes that the Chinese and Cambodian law enforcement operations have gone some way to combating fraud in Sihanoukville, but intelligence suggests that fraud syndicates are still in full swing recruiting and they have expanded their base to Southeast Asia and the Middle East.
These crime syndicates have vast resources and networks. The Malaysian media reported last month that a Selangor man was tricked by his best friend into going to Dubai to run an online scam. He was not expected to perform well and was resold to the Westport campus after working in Dubai for a month.
Global Anti-Fraud has also received distress messages from northern Myanmar in recent months, with victims mainly Malaysians and Taiwanese. But the political instability there makes rescue efforts extremely challenging. A spokesperson said, "It's not like Cambodia where there are media and volunteer workers to help, and if you are scammed into northern Myanmar, the chances of being rescued are very, very low."
Global Anti-Fraud warns that recruitment sites for part-time scams may also be located in other Southeast Asian countries such as Thailand, Laos and the Philippines. "Don't think that just because your destination is not Cambodia or Myanmar that you are safe, these man snakes can smuggle you there at any time and as soon as you get on their bus your freedom is restricted."
Other Chinese companies implicated in smear campaign
Rampant fraud and criminal activity has hit the image of Sihanoukville. Chinese businessmen doing business there are deeply frustrated, calling on outsiders not to generalize and stressing that many Chinese companies are running regular businesses in Cambodia.
Yang, a Chinese businessman involved in tourism projects, told the Zaobao that thousands of Chinese people had evacuated Sihanoukville for fear of their safety after the "blood slavery case" that rocked the city earlier this year, and that many had avoided Sihanoukville because of the negative publicity.
Yang, who asked not to be named, said that many of the violent incidents in Sihanoukville were isolated and did not reflect the true picture of Sihanoukville, and that the media did not have a good understanding of the situation before reporting them.
He said that most of the parks in Sihanoukville operate online gambling, not fraudulent activities, and that some of the online gambling companies have not yet expired their operating licences, so they are still operating today and are not illegal.
A large number of Chinese arrived in Sihanoukville around 2016 to develop the gambling industry and casinos have sprung up there. However, the crime that accompanies the gaming industry has also made Sihanoukville an unsettling and controversial place to live.
Internet gambling to be banned in 2019, with some operators switching to online scams
In 2019, the Cambodian government will stop issuing online gambling licences and ban online gambling altogether on the grounds of national security and public order. As a result, the gambling industry in Sihanoukville has been decimated, with some activities going underground and some operators switching to online fraud.
Mr Young does not deny that some Chinese are carrying out illegal activities such as scams in Sihanoukville, but he says: "There are so many Chinese people running all kinds of businesses here, are we all scammers?"
According to the Sihanoukville provincial government, 90 per cent of the industries in Sihanoukville are invested in and managed by Chinese, including hotels, casinos, retail and services. Among them, the industrial output of the Sihanoukville Special Economic Zone, jointly developed by Chinese and Cambodian companies, contributes more than 50 per cent to the local economy.
Anti-fraud awareness still needed in South East Asia
Many of those who are tricked into working for fraudsters in Sihanoukville are educated young people. Southeast Asian countries need to step up their efforts to raise awareness and tackle the problem at its source.
Jacob Sims, director of the Cambodia programme of the International Justice Mission, a legal aid charity, said in an interview that cases of forced labour by Southeast Asians in Sihanoukville have only emerged in the last two years, largely as a result of the epidemic.
The high unemployment and economic depression brought on by the epidemic has left many people in distress, and when faced with financial pressure, people are more likely to be deceived.
He noted that it was not low-skilled workers who were being conned into Sihanoukville, but young people who were educated, could read and write in multiple languages, and who could operate and execute sophisticated scams. "Before the epidemic, this type of working population was less likely to be trafficked and less likely to seek employment in Cambodia or take on higher risk jobs."
In March this year, the International Justice Mission issued a joint statement with human rights organisations from 34 other Southeast Asian countries expressing concern about forced labour on the Cambodian campus. The embassies of Pakistan, Vietnam and Indonesia have also issued warnings urging people not to trust online job advertisements.
The Chinese embassy in Cambodia warned against the trap of overpaid recruitment and urged workers to sign a formal labour contract before leaving for Cambodia, otherwise "what awaits you is not a good salary, but illegal imprisonment and kidnapping for ransom in online gambling dens".
In addition to stepping up awareness-raising efforts, Sims hopes the Cambodian government will improve its ability to combat cybercrime and punish the moneymakers behind the scams.