Cambodian police raided two buildings in Poipet city, Banteay Meanchey province and found 230 foreigners including 68 women who are allegedly involved in online scam operations, according to a National Police statement on Monday.
The two-day crackdown on February 22 and 23, 2025 was conducted after more than three months of investigation, which led to the discovery of the foreigners, where 123 of them were Thai nationals. They have been taken in for questioning.
“The foreigners were secretly carrying out online scams where the masterminds are Chinese,” the police said on Monday, adding that the scammers were allegedly living “normal lives” and “voluntarily” accepted the illegal job.
The police said they will seek Thai police cooperation to follow up on the legal procedures involving the Thai nationals as well as the arrest of other suspects.
Recently, Thai police cut telecommunication services to a suspected scam center in Poipet city, known for harboring scam centers, in a latest cross-border move against the illicit industry after a high-profile Chinese victim was trafficked from Thailand to a scam compound in Myanmar earlier this year.
At the time, Cambodian police said Thai police “did not request for cooperation”.
However, Thai media reported that their government spokesperson Jirayu Houngsub said Thailand rescued 215 “victims”. Some 109 of them were Thai citizens, along with 50 Pakistanis, 48 Indians and three Indonesians.
In the latest raid, Thai police coordinated with Cambodian police to storm a three-storey building within a plaza compound in Poipet city, across the Rong Klua market in Sa Kaeo’s Aranyaprathey district.
A source revealed that Thai authorities were first alerted to the scam when they received an email from a victim seeking help. Following investigation, they found the “call-center gang’s location” and cooperated with Cambodian police to crack down the operation, the source said.
Cambodia National Committee for Counter Trafficking vice president Choun Bun Eng said she received information about the raid, and that the Cambodian police are working on the issue.
“If they find that it is related to human trafficking, they will send it [case] to the anti-human trafficking department. If they identify it as an online scam issue, we will prosecute under the criminal law,” she said.
Cambodia does not view all scam issues as being related to human trafficking issues, she remarked.
Banteay Meanchey provincial police chief Sith Luos could not be reached for comment.
Similarly, efforts to obtain further information from the Royal Thai Police and Provincial Police Region 2, Indian and Pakistan embassies in Cambodia were futile as they did not respond via email at the time of publication.
