RFA Outlook — South Korea imposed a “code black” travel ban on parts of Cambodia on October 15 and dispatched a team of senior officials to help nationals lured to work in fraudulent compounds and secure the release of those held against their will, according to the Reuters news agency.
More than 1,000 South Koreans are believed to be among 200,000 people of various nationalities involved in scams in Cambodia, South Korea’s national security adviser Wi Sung-lac told reporters.
RFA Korean’s Jaewoo Park reports for RFA Perspectives: Why has Southeast Asia – particularly Cambodia and Myanmar – become a ‘haven for scams’?
It’s not just about crime. It is the result of corruption, anarchy and economic despair.
Across the region, hundreds of thousands of people are trapped in cyber scam complexes.
They are lured by fake job offers, kidnapped and forced to commit online fraud under brutal conditions.
Earlier this year, Chinese actor Wang Xing made international headlines after he was rescued from Myanmar’s famous KK Park.
He had flown to Thailand for an acting job, but was kidnapped and sold in a fraud operation.
His rescue was extremely rare.
In August, a South Korean student was tortured to death in Cambodia after being deceived by a fake job offer.
The case shocked the Korean public, but it is only part of a much larger criminal network.
Recently released footage even showed a man suspected of being the student being forced to inhale drugs and explain to his captors how he ended up in Cambodia.
So why Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar?
Because they are where anarchy and capital meet.
A decade ago, Cambodia became an early hotspot for Chinese and Taiwanese phone scams, thanks to cheap internet and lax regulations.
When China banned online gambling in 2019, these same networks did not disappear: they simply moved their operations to Cambodian casinos.
Special economic zones (SEZs) in countries like Laos have become hotbeds of criminal activity due to lax regulations, while in Myanmar a coup and civil war have made enforcement virtually impossible.
Add to that corrupt officials, weak law enforcement and accessible internet, and you have fertile ground for organized crime.
The United Nations estimates that more than 100,000 people have been trafficked to Cambodia for cyber scams – victims from China, Korea, Kenya and around the world.
As repression intensifies in Myanmar and Laos, more and more of these criminal networks are moving into Cambodia.
It’s not just about online scams. This is a new form of human trafficking, hidden behind a screen.