The deaths of at least two Thais in Cambodia’s Poipet in the past week attest to the fact that the transnational call centre networks remain active and strong, as the government in Phnom Penh shamefully fails to keep its commitment to uprooting this heinous criminality.
The two, Suda Chonlaket and Sarawut (surname not released), were said to be working for one of these networks. The bruises on their bodies suggest they were tortured for failing to meet network revenue targets.
A rescue organisation believes that five people might have been murdered by the network in recent weeks. At print time, Suda’s husband, also a network employee, remains unaccounted for.
Meanwhile, another 14 Thai citizens who claimed they were lured into working for scam syndicates in Cambodia were rescued and repatriated earlier this week by a joint rescue team.
However, like the cases of Suda and Sarawut, there are no reports of crime bosses, said to be members of a Chinese mafia, being arrested in the operation.
It’s an open secret that Cambodian authorities, from top to bottom, have allegedly been paid under the table by the crime bosses.
Allegedly, the ill-gotten gains systematically go to those in government, as the grey business has expanded extensively, so much so that Cambodia has earned the reputation of being one of the largest online scam hubs in the world.
Some high-profile bosses, like Yim Leak — a wealthy businessman blacklisted by the US for his grey businesses — have close connections with the influential Hun family in Cambodia. There are also allegations that Yim Leak, as well as his fellow tycoons, also had strong ties to politicians and businesspeople in Thailand.
More than just a few young Thais working for these networks have died over the past years. There have been no investigations, as Cambodian authorities have just claimed the workers plunged to their death or had heart failure, a very unusual cause of death for people of working age. Yet, it’s reported that Thai authorities have received hardly any cooperation from their Cambodian counterparts — even when relations were warm and cordial — in cracking down or conducting probes into those unusual deaths.
Unlike the case of the South Korean student who was abducted and killed by gangsters in Cambodia, which triggered global attention last month, those unusual deaths of the Thai citizens largely faded from public attention. But such irregularities must not be allowed to go on.
Phnom Penh must be reminded of its obligations to crack down on transboundary scam networks. In fact, it’s one of the four prerequisites it agreed to before entering into the peace deal with Thailand last month.
Thailand must reinforce its efforts to combat transboundary crime and keep the global community engaged, taking Cambodia to task for failing to dismantle criminal networks as promised.
At the same time, Thai authorities must clean up Thailand’s own backyard by accelerating operations against scam networks so that no criminal bosses escape the law.