Getting a clear picture of the numbers is difficult. Mostly from China, but also other Southeast Asian nations, victims are kidnapped by these groups, held captive and forced, under threat of violence, to perpetrate web scams.

Still, the Southeast Asian nation, notorious for endemic corruption, has continued to be used as a base for the criminal networks linked to online gambling and fraud. They found in Cambodia a haven of low taxes and lax regulations after a clampdown in the Philippines.Ĭatering mostly to the community in mainland China, where all gambling except state-run lotteries is illegal, Sihanoukville quickly attracted aspirational labels like 'the Macao of Southeast Asia.'Ĭambodia's state apparatus and security services are entwined with Prime Minister Hun Sen's Cambodian People's Party. They grew out of an influx of online gambling groups and casino operators, mostly from China, who flocked to the coastal city of Sihanoukville in 2016. The networks, which are known mainly for running online gambling operations, force their captives to perpetrate online scams. The videos provide a window into the dark world run by transnational criminal networks able to smuggle people from China, through Vietnam and into Cambodia and Myanmar. In a third, a grounded man, a foot on his neck, writhes in pain as he is electrocuted with a Taser.

This ransom video supplied to Nikkei shows a handcuffed man being beaten with a stick while other victims watch in horror.Īnother video shows a shirtless man cuffed on the ground being beaten with a stick while two more captives, handcuffed to a nearby window grill, watch on in terror.

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