Two Vietnamese nationals were arrested earlier this month in connection to the kidnapping and torture of a female Chinese student who was filmed having her finger cut off with a butcher knife.
Authorities confirmed the arrests to CamboJA but offered little information about the case.
The suspects are in pre-trial detention at Svay Riang provincial prison, facing charges of unlawfully detaining another person under Article 254 of the criminal code, Svay Rieng provincial court deputy prosecutor Chhiv Ek Kong told CamboJA. The charges could bring between 15 to 30 years imprisonment.
The two suspects allegedly tricked the 23-year-old student into traveling to Cambodia. She had received a call in mid-July from someone pretending to represent the Chinese consulate, according to Sihanoukville Diary, which first reported the case last Friday.
She was asked by the people pretending to be police to come to Bavet City in Svay Rieng province on the Vietnamese border to cooperate as a witness in an investigation of “money laundering crimes,” the Diary reported. She had been sent documents that included a fake arrest warrant for her.
She was kidnapped in Bavet on August 4. Her family was notified by WeChat that they would be required to pay a ransom of 5 million yuan ($695,000) or she would be sold to Myanmar and have her kidney removed for sale.
“I didn’t know it was a scam until they took me into a house on the night of August 4th. They started to ask me for ransom, that’s when I realized they were a scam gang,” she told the Diary.
The kidnappers bound the student and recorded a video cutting off her finger with a butcher knife; CamboJA verified the video. The kidnappers also used an electronic baton to shock and beat the student, the Diary reported.
On August 5, the student’s family members sought assistance from Chinese nationals who reported the case to the Sihanoukville Provincial Military Police Command.
The student was rescued on August 10 and two Vietnamese suspects were arrested in Svay Rieng, National Military Police spokesperson Eng Hy confirmed to CamboJA.
“We only cooperated in the arrest. It is still in proceedings. Nothing more to tell. The suspects were sent to the court for proceeding,” said Hy, who declined to comment further.
Sihanoukville Military Police Chief Heng Bunthy declined to comment.
Svay Riang Police Chief Kao Hourn told CamboJA that he was “not involved” in the kidnapping case and directed CamboJA to the Military Police for further information.
Photographs of the rescue and arrests, including of the Chinese student posing with Bunthy, Preah Sihanouk’s Military Police Chief, were published by the Diary but not shared on any official police platforms as arrests in violent crime cases normally are.
Bavet City has emerged as a hotspot for the online scam industry, following numerous police and media reports of alleged human trafficking and criminal activity.
Earlier this month, the Indonesian embassy to Phnom Penh stated that Indonesian nationals had been rescued from forced confinement related to online scam operations in Bavet City and several other locations in Cambodia in the past month. The Indonesian government’s allegations were denied by Cambodian police.
A recent poll of Chinese citizens found that 97% said they would no longer travel to Cambodia or Myanmar where the online scam industry and human trafficking have become notorious, the watchdog group Cyber Scam Monitor noted.
