South Koreans freed from Cambodian scam centres return home under arrest

According to South Korean authorities, dozens of South Korean nationals who had been detained in Cambodia were taken into custody and detained for allegedly engaging in cyberscam activities have been taken back home.

A South Korean police official told the AFP news agency that officers had detained the passengers on a chartered flight that was being driven from Cambodia.

The official stated on Saturday that “64 people had just flown on a chartered flight to the Incheon international airport,” adding that all of the passengers had been detained as criminal suspects.

Earlier this week, South Korea dispatched a team to Cambodia to look into the kidnapped members of the Southeast Asian nation’s online scam trade.

According to Wi Sung-lac, the South Korean national security adviser, the detained people were both “voluntary and involuntary participants” in scam operations.

The repatriation agreement with South Korea represented the “result of good cooperation in the suppression of scams between the two countries,” according to Cambodian Ministry of Interior spokesman Touch Sokhak on Friday.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, when many Chinese-owned casinos and hotels turned to illegal activities in Cambodia, online scams have increased.

Tens of thousands of workers operate industrial-scale scam centers, which frequently target people in the West in a highly lucrative sector that is responsible for the annual theft of tens of billions of dollars.

Pig-butchering, an apex for fattening up a victim before they are slaughtered, frequently involves shady cryptocurrency investment schemes that build trust over time before the money is stolen.

In Laos, the Philippines, and Myanmar, where abuse and imprisonment are the most frequented, parallel industries have flourished.

Diffusion of large-scale scam operations in Cambodia employs an estimated 200 000 people, many of whom are wealthy and politically connected, and are employed by scam companies in many of the country’s wealthy and politically connected areas. According to estimates, around 1, 000 South Korean nationals make up that number.

A Cambodia-based multinational crime network, known as the Prince Group, was put on full sanctions by the United States and the United Kingdom on Tuesday for operating a number of “scam centers” throughout the area.

The Prince Group, which promotes itself as a legitimate real estate, financial services, and consumer businesses company, was linked to 19 London properties worth more than 100 million pounds ($134 million).

According to the prosecution, Chen Zhi, the head of Prince Group’s Chinese-Cambodian tycoon, boasted that his fraudulent activities were making $30 million a day at one point.

According to the UK and US, Chen is wanted on suspicion of wire fraud and money laundering. He has advised Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet and his father, long-ruling former prime minister Hun Sen.

If found guilty, he could spend up to 40 years in prison.

The UK and US’s action against the Prince Group came as South Korea announced a ban on certain travel destinations in Cambodia on Wednesday amid growing concerns about its citizens’ entry into the scam industry.

A student from a college in Cambodia who was allegedly kidnapped and tortured by a crime ring will also be the subject of a joint investigation led by South Korean police, according to a statement released today.