Hundreds Nabbed in Biggest-Ever VoIP Raid
August 3, 2017
Police raided two guesthouses in Poipet City on Wednesday and arrested about 200 Chinese nationals suspected of operating an internet blackmailing scam, the biggest-ever detention of fraudsters using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology in Cambodia, an official said.

The scam involved blackmailing women after persuading them to send nude photographs of themselves, said Khun Sambo, deputy director of the Interior Ministry’s immigration department.

The raids in the Banteay Meanchey province border town followed a tip-off from Chinese authorities, Lieutenant General Sambo said.

“We got information from China that they arrested some suspects with connections to Cambodia,” and tracked their associates in Cambodia with the help of the Telecommunications Ministry, he said. About 200 Chinese nationals were arrested, including 32 women, he added...
https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/hund ... id-133175/

Interestingly, the two guesthouses where the scams were being run were owned by members of the Cambodia police force and their relatives:

Online crime den guesthouse owners will not be charged
4 August 2017
Two guesthouses raided on Tuesday in connection with online extortion schemes for which 200 Chinese nationals were arrested are owned by police officials and the relative of a deputy police chief, it has emerged.

The owners of the guesthouses will not face any legal action, a police official said yesterday, because they were not aware of their guests’ activities.

A police report obtained yesterday revealed that one of the guesthouses belongs to the uncle of an unidentified Poipet town deputy police chief, while the other is owned by Soung Sao, deputy commander of the border police unit 911, and Ros Piseth, chief of border police at the Boeung Sakou corridor.

When asked what would happen to the guesthouse owners involved in the case, Mr Haiseila said that they would not face any legal action, but have now been “educated”. “We have educated the guesthouse owners because they rented rooms to criminals without knowing about their activities for a long time,” he said.
http://www.khmertimeskh.com/5076532/onl ... t-charged/

AndyKK wrote: ↑Fri Aug 04, 2017 1:08 pm I bet they paid their bills before leaving

Probably not all of them...

Raids on Alleged Scammers Send Chinese Fleeing Across Border
August 4, 2017
About half of some 200 Chinese nationals arrested in Poipet City for allegedly operating an internet voice call scam had been questioned on Thursday, though no ringleaders had been caught and other suspects had fled across the border to Thailand, an official said.

Police raids on two guesthouses in the Banteay Meanchey province border town on Wednesday followed a tip-off from Chinese authorities and netted two laptops, more than 100 desk phones and other equipment, an official at the Interior Ministry’s immigration department said.

But when authorities showed up at a third house nearby, about 5 meters from the Thai border, the landlords said the Chinese nationals staying there had fled, according to Uk Heisela, the department’s chief of investigations.
“Our Cambodians who rent the house told us that some of those Chinese [tenants] ran into Thailand,” Lieutenant General Heisela said on Thursday.

Lt. Gen. Heisela said on Thursday that the detained Chinese nationals would be deported to China from Siem Reap International Airport after they were all questioned.
https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/raid ... er-133223/

This has been getting quite a bit of attention in SEA media.
Photo Cambodia police.
Blackmail gang: Cambodia arrests 215 Chinese who ran online nude photo scam
- Cambodia has arrested more than 200 Chinese men and women suspected of running an online scam that persuaded victims to send nude photographs and then extorted them for cash, police said Thursday.

The sweeping arrests come as the Southeast Asian country cracks down on Chinese cybercrime gangs who use web technology to target their fellow citizens from abroad.

The gang allegedly used internet voice calls to contact victims in China, building up relationships with their targets over time before asking them to send nude pictures which they then used as blackmail, police said.
http://www.scmp.com/news/asia/southeast ... ran-online

http://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asi ... rnet-scams
http://www.thestar.com.my/news/regional ... -cambodia/

Thai immigration officers on alert
Immigration police in Sa Kaew have beefed up monitoring for suspects trying to flee into Thailand after Cambodian authorities raided a 212-member “call-centre” scam in Poipet on Wednesday.

Pol Colonel Benjapol Rodsawad, the Sa Kaew immigration chief, said on Thursday that his office and sa kaew police and para-military officers were monitoring tourists, especially those of Chinese nationality coming from Poipet. They were also patrolling border lines to prevent fugitives entering the Kingdom. The increased surveillance came after Cambodian police raided two commercial buildings in the poipet Market area on Wednesday afternoon and rounded up 212 Chinese suspects along with electronic devices and 100 cell phones...
http://pattayaone.news/en/thai-immigrat ... ers-alert/

24 August 2017
POIPET - 122 mainland Chinese, who were previously arrested by Cambodian police for their involvement in VoIP extortion at Kbal Spean Village, Poipet commune, Poipet town, Banteay Meanchey province earlier this month, were deported earlier today.
The Cambodian Director of the Department of Immigration said that the Chinese Minister of Security had arranged for two planes to repatriate the deportees from Siem Reap airport to China.

rfa.org