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Footage shared on social media on Thursday showed security guards chasing and beating men fleeing a long-documented scam compound in Bavet, Svay Rieng province, where worker revolts and violence have broken out before. The provincial deputy governor said an investigation is under way.
Videos posted on X by Cyberscam Monitor, an investigative channel tracking online scam operations in Southeast Asia, show dozens of workers being chased and struck with batons by guards at a sprawling, heavily fortified compound identified by the group as Venus Park.
The nighttime clash’s exact date remains unclear.
Bavet City Police Chief Em Sovannarith downplayed the incident as a “dispute between workers and their employers,” instead of an attempted escape by exploited workers in online scam operations. He could not confirm when it occurred or the site’s name.
Previous raids on compounds operating under the Venus name and allegedly linked to the nearby Venus Casino have led to joint Cambodian-Vietnamese operations, dozens of convictions for online fraud in Vietnam and the repatriation of hundreds suspected of being trafficked into forced criminal work.
Sovannarith did not respond to follow-up questions about the prior raids or what business is currently conducted at Venus Park.
Men Eng, deputy governor of Svay Rieng province, said authorities are investigating the incident but did not confirm how many foreign nationals were involved or what led to the clash.
In recent years, the Cambodia-Vietnam border town of Bavet has become a hub for casinos and online scam operations such as “pig butchering” and romance scams, according to the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime. Cambodia has faced growing international pressure to curb these illicit networks, often run by Chinese syndicates operating within its borders and with alleged protection from senior officials.
Like other border towns and casino enclaves in Cambodia, Bavet has also been the site of violent murders.
Cyberscam Monitor has identified at least 20 scam networks still operating in the Bavet.
Venus Park has also experienced fires, which local police attributed to electrical issues and said caused no injuries.
A vendor who works near Venus Park told CamboJA News late last year that people housed inside the compound regularly tried to escape.
The vendor, who declined to be named for security reasons, said, “There are a lot of rumors about this place, with people trying to run away and some even found dead, but no one dares to talk about it because if a death happens, the news rarely comes out.”
National Police spokesperson Chhay Kim Khoeun did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
None of the officials CamboJA News spoke with could confirm who employed the men being beaten in the videos or whether authorities plan to screen them for human trafficking.
Cambodia has faced renewed scrutiny over the online scam industry, which is estimated to generate between $12.5 billion and $19 billion a year and rely on more than 100,000 forced laborers in the country alone.
The U.S. also sanctioned Prince Group, a Cambodian conglomerate it calls a transnational criminal organization running online scam operations, and seized over $15 billion in Bitcoin linked to the group’s chairman this month.
The blacklisting follows continued scrutiny from Washington over scam operations in the region, which are estimated to have swindled over $10 billion from Americans each year, even as Phnom Penh has established several inter-ministerial task forces it says are tasked with combating scam networks.
Updated note: This article has been updated to correct the estimated annual revenue of Cambodia’s scam industry to between $12.5 billion and $19 billion. An earlier version incorrectly stated the figure in millions, not billions.
