Cambodia and Thailand police cross-border scams
31 Jan 2022 at 04:30
Thailand and Cambodia are stepping up cooperation efforts to suppress cross-border online scams.

Digital Economy and Society Minister Chaiwut Thanakamanusorn said he met Cambodia's Minister of Posts and Telecommunications Chea Vandet via video conference to strengthen a crackdown on deceptive call centres and investment scams which have caused losses in both countries.

Four measures were agreed: setting up contact points for authorities of both countries to track down suspects; information-sharing regarding voice over internet protocol (VOIP), IP addresses and contact records of suspects; establishing suppression teams within both countries; and issuing memorandums of understanding (MoUs).

Mr Chaiwut said the move follows a meeting with Sok Sokrethya, personal adviser to Cambodian Prime Minister HE in August last year that dealt with cross-border scams.

From June last year, the Police Cyber Taskforce began receiving complaints from victims defrauded by call centre and investment scams as well as online gambling schemes, with losses amounting to hundreds of millions of baht, he said.
https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/ge ... rder-scams

seems the thais are hopefully serious about putting an end to this:
this whole thing could not take place without higher ups being paid off on both sides

A couple have been arrested in Sa Kaeo province for allegedly procuring Thai job seekers to work for a phone scam gang in Cambodia.

A combined team of police led by the Police Cyber Taskforce (PCT) raided suspected locations in Sa Kaeo to arrest members of a major phone scam network on Thursday, said Pol Gen Damrongsak Kittiprapas, deputy national police chief and director of the PCT.

The team apprehended Natthakorn Duangwong, 28 and his wife Oyjai Khotram, 34, who allegedly tricked Thais into working for the scammers in Cambodia.

https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/ge ... N-u7ATcxc4

February 14, 2022
Cross-border blitz: Thai cops crack down on cybercriminal nationals in Cambodia

Following a number of cases involving Thais being duped into working for cybercriminal gangs operating in Cambodia, the neighbouring country’s police have cast a net to seize nationals who are involved in such activities.

Top officials from the Thai Police Cyber Taskforce (PCT) and the Digital Economy and Society (DES) Ministry met top brass in Cambodia earlier this week to discuss the extradition of cybercriminals believed to be hiding in the Kingdom.

“A married couple was arrested on February 3 in Thailand’s Sa Kaew province for allegedly coordinating the transfer of Thais to work at two call centre gangs in Cambodia. This operation is reportedly overseen by a Chinese gang leader,” The Nation reported Police General Damrongsak Kittipraphat, deputy national police chief and director of the PCT, as saying.

“The PCT is tracking down other accomplices and has called on the court to issue arrest warrants for 71 individuals involved with two cybercriminal gangs believed to be hiding in Cambodia.”

Pol Gen Damrongsak said Cambodian authorities will cooperate with PCT to inspect three locations in Phnom Penh and Preah Sihanouk’s Sihanoukville where the suspects are believed to be hiding. They will then be arrested and handed over to Thailand for legal action.

“During Covid lockdowns, there have been many reports of people living along the Thai-Cambodian border being tricked into joining call-centre gangs in Cambodia, which scam victims in Thailand via the internet or calls,” Pol Gen Damrongsak said. “The PCT will work with relevant agencies in Thailand and neighbouring countries to bring these criminals to justice.”

People who have any information of call-centre gangs have been urged to call the 1441 hotline or provide information at www.pct.police.go.th.
https://www.khmertimeskh.com/501024304/ ... -cambodia/

Cyber-slavery in Cambodia is no longer a secret: Names have been named, names and adresses of hotels involved in human trafficking are known, eye-witness victims are ready to speak out, yet crimes such as online scams, torture, kidnapping, extortion, and human trafficking continue unimpeded in no-go areas of Cambodia. In these areas, Cambodian laws are flouted with impunity by foreign criminal gangs.

Dead bodies have been found buried or washed-up, people have been reported as 'disappeared', and others have committed "suicide" or "accidentally fallen from high buildings" around these same areas, but although the bodies are piling up, there has been no official concerted investigation to expose the masterminds who are running these hot-beds of international crime on Cambodian soil. Read on.

Long read.
Victims Allege Sihanoukville Precincts With Ties to Major Businesses Are Sites of Scams, Torture, Detention
Mech Dara, Cindy Liu and Danielle Keeton-Olsen
| Fri Feb 18, 2022 7:24 am

Accounts of scam operations, forced labor and human trafficking have emerged from a number of Sihanoukville precincts where rows of stark concrete buildings stand with windows barred and entrances heavily guarded.

Workers trapped in Cambodian human-trafficking hubs are being forced to perpetuate massive global scams. A stream of victims have told VOD of detention, violence, torture and more — while the businesses have been largely allowed to keep operating.

In one notorious, crime-ridden area near O’Tres beach, victims say several scam operations surround Crown FC president Rithy Samnang’s KB Hotel, which is referred to in Chinese as Kaibo — the same name used for a nearby alleged forced-labor site. One of his partners in the hotel is a Chinese fugitive, wanted over money laundering. Other scam operations are allegedly housed within a separate Sihanoukville compound linked to Anco, a business run by Samnang’s father-in-law: prominent developer and CPP senator Kok An.

Rescued workers from businesses using space within the compounds have spoken of lavish rewards for successful scams as well as detention, debt slavery and beatings, including a victim who said he was only rescued after directly contacting Preah Sihanouk provincial governor Kuoch Chamroeun.

When approached about the accounts of criminal activity in the precincts, businesses of Samnang and An gave no response or denied knowledge. The tycoons and their associates did not reply to repeated requests for comment. Governor Chamroeun also did not answer questions, though a provincial spokesperson said authorities always respond to requests for help, and nearly all illegal activities had been stamped out.

But for Zhang*, 24, who considered jumping off a building to escape a compound where guards with flashlights roamed all night, and Lin*, also 24, those Sihanoukville compounds are the sites where they were bought, sold and confined against their will.

A satellite image from Sihanoukville’s Buon commune, highlighting the building where Lin told VOD he was allegedly detained and forced to run scams, which is part of a complex with KB Hotel, partly owned by Pi Pay’s founder and Crown FC owner Rithy Samnang. (Danielle Keeton-Olsen/VOD)

Kaibo Building 5
When Lin flew to Cambodia from China’s Fujian province last March, he took a job working for a food stall inside a compound in Sihanoukville. Over the seven months he worked there, he began to realize that he was delivering food and preparing meals within a compound that housed online scam operations. Such operations had proliferated in Sihanoukville in a void left by Covid-19 and a ban on online gambling in the past two years.

A satellite map of the area referred to as “Chinatown” near O’Tres beach in Sihanoukville, with the alleged scam compound and other businesses labeled. (Danielle Keeton-Olsen/VOD)

It wasn’t until he was kidnapped and sold to a scam operation in Kaibo Building 5 that he fully understood what was happening across numerous skyscrapers and compounds in the city.

“I came to see the outside world. I didn’t expect this to happen. I only wanted to come and have some fun,” he said after he was finally released from the Kaibo compound.

Full article: https://vodenglish.news/from-timber-to- ... coons-sez/

Carry on nothing to see here

How many of these rings are the gonna bust up before someone realizes it isn't really working.

Cyber police helping 48 Thais to return home from Cambodia after call-centre scam
23 February 2022

The Police Cyber Taskforce (PCT) will soon bring back home 48 Thais who had been conned by a call centre gang into working for high salaries in Sihanoukville, Cambodia, PCT chief Pol General Damrongsak Kittipraphat said on Tuesday.

“The PCT have been working with Cambodian police to track down the call centre gang that had been running a scamming operation via phone calls and the internet in Thailand,” he said.

“On February 18, officials raided more than 20 suspected buildings in Sihanoukville’s China Town district and rescued 48 Thai nationals, who were taken to work there by the gang.”

Damrongsak said the police had contacted the Royal Thai Embassy in Phnom Penh and was informed that the Thais would be sent back to their hometowns in 2-3 weeks as they had to notify Cambodia’s Interior Ministry first.

A preliminary interview with the victims revealed that they had been recruited by an online agency, which claimed to offer website administrators salaries of around 20,000-50,000 baht [approx. US$620- $1550]per month plus accommodation and other benefits, with the job located in Cambodia.

“The agency even took care of passport and visa applications for the candidates and picked them up at the Aranyaprathet border checkpoint in Sa Kaeo by bus before driving them across the border legally,” said Damrongsak.


“But after that, the victims were taken to a sugarcane plantation in Cambodia, where their phones were confiscated and they were forced to travel on foot to the buildings in China Town.”

One of the victims reportedly said he was paid only 10,000 baht per month, so he decided to quit. However, the gang claimed he had to pay 200,000 baht to the company as a contract termination fee. Others who wanted to quit were either threatened with being forced to work at other sites or locked in a room with no food or drink.

“Don’t fall for job offers that are too good to be true on the internet, as these jobs are often illegal or come with a huge disadvantage,” warned Damrongsak, adding that if anyone has any information on these call centre gangs, contact hotline 1441 or https://pct.police.go.th/.
https://www.nationthailand.com/in-focus/40012659

It would have been more appropriate for the site links above to have been a Cambodian connection.

Editor’s Choice
Thai Police on Scam Networks in Cambodia, ‘Challenging’ Investigations
11 min read

Jintamas Saksornchai
| Mon Feb 28, 2022 3:20 pm

BANGKOK — Thai workers have pleaded for rescue from online scam businesses in Sihanoukville, where they were allegedly detained and tortured. Reports about forced labor and shocking work conditions have led Thai police to engage in more rescue operations and facilitate the return of hundreds of Thai nationals from Cambodia.
Q&A
Major General Archayon Kraithong is an officer at Thailand’s Immigration Bureau.
Captain Kritsana Iamsa-ard works with the Sa Kaeo Provincial Police.

VOD interviewed two Thai police officers involved in these investigation and repatriation efforts — Captain Kritsana Iamsa-ard of Sa Kaeo Provincial Police and Major General Archayon Kraithong of Thailand’s Immigration Bureau — who spoke of abusive conditions and their desire for a bigger crackdown.

Note: The reporter interviewed the officials separately in two in-person interviews. Answers have been condensed and edited for clarity.

VOD: When did you start hearing about these scam cases in Cambodia?
Kritsana
I’ve known about it since we started closing the border. The detainment of workers appeared in the beginning [of 2021]. In the past, when people went to work in Cambodia, mostly it was for normal office jobs. There were not a lot of these businesses, the scams and frauds.

Then, in early [2021], around January and February, I began to wonder why there were so many Chinese coming [into Thailand] illegally. We arrested a number of them. They came through Mae Sot, from the Myanmar border. I’m not sure how they made it from there. At first, I thought they were casino workers, but later I found out they came from China [to try to go to Cambodia], paying a commission fee to go there and building up their networks in Cambodia.

Archayon
Lately, because of Covid-19, the land crossing has gotten a bit difficult because [Thai] officers are holding tight control along the border area. However, due to the economic situation, the [limited] opportunities have made Thai people who have these two skills — languages and online and computer — want to go to work [abroad] because the payments promised are relatively high, so they could provide for their families or sustain themselves.
Full interview: https://vodenglish.news/thai-police-on- ... tigations/

Quote from the article -
When they learn from social media that there are job openings, they apply and travel to the border. Some might have been tricked from the very beginning, paying the fee and then not getting to meet any agents. Some make it all the way to the border with the promise they would get a passport or other document but eventually no one comes [to meet them]. Some pay everything and get to cross the border, but later find themselves crossing illegally, because now the land border still isn’t open for workers who are employed by unregistered businesses, so most of them have to cross the land border illegally.

If this is the case, then why are the Cambodian authorities (immigration police) not rounding up the Thai illegals'