‘This is me, very pretty’: Inside a Cambodian cyberscam site
The Straits Times
AFP was invited to visit an office in the capital Phnom Penh a day after it was raided by police. Read more at straitstimes.com.
PHNOM PENH - Multilingual scripts, images of young women and timed toilet breaks: a police tour of a newly busted cyberscam operation in Cambodia on March 11 revealed how fraudsters ensnare foreign victims online.
Cambodia has become a major hotspot for crime syndicates running a multibillion-dollar illicit industry in which scammers defraud internet users globally in romance and cryptocurrency investment cons.
As countries like the United States and China press Cambodia to crack down on the networks stealing from their citizens, AFP was invited to visit an office in the capital Phnom Penh a day after it was raided by police.
On the 30th floor of a luxury building, dozens of desktop computer screens showed conversations, group chats and software that authorities said scammers used to swindle people in Britain and Europe.
Police said they detained 57 Cambodian suspects and eight Chinese “ringleaders” at the office on the night of March 10.
The suspects “committed online scams by persuading victims who are foreigners in Europe to invest in fake investments”, said Phnom Penh deputy police chief Bun Sosekha, who led the raid.
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