PHNOM PENH: Broken computer monitors in bombed-out offices, scattered fake police uniforms and phoney hundred-dollar bills: these were the vestiges of a frantic escape of suspected cyberscammers fleeing a resort on the Cambodia-Thailand border.
Southeast Asia has become the epicentre of the multibillion-dollar online scam industry in which hundreds of thousands of fraudsters – some trafficked, others willing workers – cheat internet users globally with romance and cryptocurrency investment schemes.
On Thursday (Mar 12), AFP was invited on a Thai military-organised tour of an area of Cambodia’s O’Smach which Thai forces captured during border clashes last year.
Thailand says the area had been used as a base of operations by the Cambodian military as well as criminals running transnational scams.
The neighbouring nations engaged in deadly clashes along their disputed frontier for three weeks in December, the latest flare-up in a long-standing border conflict.
Thailand said that month its forces struck several casinos across the border, alleging they were being used as Cambodian weapons storage facilities and firing positions. At least two have been identified by monitors as fronts operating as scam hubs.
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/asia/cambodia-border-casino-thai-military-scam-hub-centre-5991191
