October 3, 2021
Smuggled from China to Cambodia: A survivors story
Republished by kind permission of China Youth Daily/Khmer Times
Xiao Li (pseudonym) never thought that an online recruitment advertisement would lead to the the darkest and longest months in his life.

One day after the Spring Festival in 2021, Xiao Li, who was in his early 20s and waiting for work at home, was thinking about finding suitable job opportunities online. A job advertisement on a city’s website aroused his interest:

“A group recruits high-paying typists, customer service specialists and other positions. The job is located in Guangxi. After the job, the board and lodging company are all inclusive. In addition to the basic salary, there are monthly performance bonuses and commissions.”

The company’s treatment is good, and there are no requirements for work experience and academic qualifications. Although the work location is far away from home, Xiao Li feels it is worth a try, so he booked a high-speed rail ticket to Nanning, Guangxi.

“After I arrived in Nanning, the company arranged for me to stay in a hotel for two days, and then said to drive me to the company to apply for a job. There were several other young people in the car who didn’t know each other.”

Xiao Li didn’t think much, so he got into a Jinbei car, which drove from Nanning to Chongzuo.

After arriving at Chongzuo, the driver did not stop, but continued to drive to the suburbs. The sky was getting darker and the surrounding area became more and more remote. Xiao Li felt that something was wrong, so he asked the “Company Reception Specialist” but was scolded.

“It’s over, I can’t get away even if I want to run”,

Xiao Li started to be scared. The car finally stopped after driving for nearly 30 minutes, and it was already dark at this time. Xiao Li turned on his phone and took a look at the location through the weak network signal, only to know that he was near the “Friendship Pass” on the Sino-Vietnamese border.
The long road from Vietnam to Cambodia

Xiao Li recalled:

“After we got off the car, our group was driven down the mountain road and not allowed to turn on the mobile phone lighting. No one dared to run and I didn’t know where to go. After walking, I didn’t know how long, and finally climbed over the fence. Two people came to meet us. We followed for another 3 hours, climbing mountains and muddy ground, and finally saw the lights, houses and some slogans written in foreign characters. Only then did I realize that I had already gone past the border.”

To make matters worse, at this time, Xiao Li’s mobile phone has no signal at all, and his battery is almost exhausted. Xiao Li and his party were picked up on motorcycles by a group of Vietnamese who had been waiting here for a long time. After a few more hours of bumps, the motorcycle finally drove to a slightly crowded place. Immediately afterwards, Xiao Li was transferred into a commercial vehicle, which drove from early morning until dawn.

“We were thrown into a bar and locked up. We were separated and picked up by two commercial vehicles in the early morning of the third day of detention. A few hours later they drove us into a double-decker bus. The bus drove away. In three days, I finally arrived at Ho Chi Minh City.”

After arriving in Ho Chi Minh City, Xiao Li was transferred again. He was stuffed into a Toyota commercial vehicle and pulled to the Vietnam-Cambodia border.

“We arrived at a river on the border between Vietnam and Cambodia, and a boat came to pick me up. I was asked to lie flat in the boat, covered with a layer of black cloth. I walked on the marshland for nearly 3 hours after reaching the shore. He then got on a small boat again and arrived near a city a few hours later and was picked up by a car. This time it was a Chinese who drove. He told us that we are now in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and we are going to Sihanoukville next. Port City.”

After several days of horrifying “smuggling”, Xiao Li was tired, sleepy and dirty. When he opened his eyes again, the car had already reached the gate of the “XX City” park in Sihanoukville.

The company’s “personnel” picked up Xiao Li at the door, confiscated his mobile phone, and took him to arrange dormitory and “entry”. On the second day, the company began “business training” for Xiao Li. After receiving the “training materials”, Xiao Li suddenly realized: This is not the job of a “typist” or a “customer service specialist” at all, but the “Internet fraud” often seen on TV in the past. The company he reached and even the entire park was a den of “Internet fraud”.
Full article: https://www.khmertimeskh.com/50945948/s ... ors-story/

Cambodia News (Sihanoukville): According to a video posted on Facebook, one of the employees claimed that more than 400 employees have been forced to live and work in the Century Casino for two years without leaving the premises and most of them have contracted Covid-19.
The owner of the casino has not allowed the sick employees to take leaves or be treated but encouraged them to continue working with better salaries. Those who opposed were locked in their room and being provided only pill medicines without any doctors to monitor and assist them, leaving one woman dead.

According to the doctors and nurses association of Sihanoukville on September 30, they claimed that due to the big premises provided with the Century Casino, they decided to use the casino as the quarantine center and the doctors and nurses went to take swab tests from the employees and found most of them tested positive for Covid-19. They were treated and taken care of by the doctors and nurses in the quarantine center.

They also claimed that the patient who died was a 25-year-old woman, Hean Sreynich, was not tested positive for Covid-19, but died from food poisoning which caused her to lose large amount of water in her body after she vomited.

There was also another anonymous employee who told a radio station about a similar incident, where 437 employees have been forced to work and prohibited from leaving the casino for about one year and a half since March 2020 and they only compensated them with 30% higher pay.
The authorities of Sihanoukville have promised to look into this matter and investigate the owner of the casino to find justice for the workers.

"Fake News" says Police Chief
Sihanoukville police chief denied claims by Thai online workers who posted pleas for help on social media, claiming that they were being held against their will by a Chinese casino owner in Sihanoukville. The Thais have all been arrested for entering and working in Cambodia illegally.

Cambodia: 20 Thai Online Casino Workers Detained for Illegal Entry
Published 1 day ago on October 27, 2021
By Niji Narayan
Authorities in Cambodia have arrested 20 Thai workers for illegally crossing the border to work at an online casino in Preah Sihanouk province.

General Department of Immigration representative General Keo Vannthan said the department was helping the Thai Embassy in Phnom Penh to send back the 20 Thai workers.

Preah Sihanouk police Chief Major General Chuon Narin said that they had arrested three Chinese and a Thai man involved in running the illegal online gambling.

He said police are also looking to arrest a Cambodian broker who brought the Thais into the country illegally.

Maj Gen Narin said police sent the 20 Thais for Covid-19 rapid tests and five came out positive.

He said while in isolation, the five posted fake news on Facebook that they were detained illegally by the online casino owner and asked for urgent help so that they could return to Thailand.

“Don’t be confused by claims that the Thais were rescued by police after being illegally detained by the casino owner. They were actually arrested for entering Cambodia without legal documents,” Maj Gen Narin said.
https://europeangaming.eu/portal/latest ... gal-entry/

Trafficked Cambodian workers say casino owner is holding them against their will
A relative who filed a complaint about the incident says police have yet to take action.
2021.11.05

Three Cambodian workers trafficked in Phnom Penh and taken to work in an illegal Chinese-owned casino in the resort town of Sihanoukville are being illegally detained by their employer, while police have yet to investigate the matter despite the filing of an official complaint against the owner, a relative of the trio said Thursday.

The cousin of the three workers — two women and one man — told RFA on Thursday that a 35-year-old Chinese national surnamed Long owns the business and forced his relatives to work in the online gambling industry for two months without allowing them to leave the building where they work. The illegal operation in an unmarked building has no name.

The cousin, who lives in Poipet in Banteay Meanchey province but declined to give his name out of fear for his safety, said he filed a complaint with the Sihanoukville Police Commissariat on Nov. 1 .

His relatives — Hang Lily, Hang Tyty and Nguon Chim — told him by phone that they had been trafficked by Chinese criminals and confined to work in a casino located in the coastal town village No. 1 in commune No. 3. His cousins requested that local authorities help them because the owner forced them to work even though they became ill, he said.

“The [Chinese] company threatened my younger cousins that if they didn’t sign a contract with them, they would sell my cousins to other companies,” the relative said. “It was at that time when my cousins realized that they had been sold from Phnom Penh to Kompong Som [Sihanoukville].”

“I would like to request that authorities help to get my cousins released,” he told RFA. “I want them to conduct a raid at that company to see what they have been concealing — and not just my cousins.”
https://www.rfa.org/english/news/cambod ... 80552.html