Inside Cambodia's Scam Compounds: Electric Shocks, 20-Hour Shifts and Bosses Fleeing After Raids

Meeting Agent Vicky in Phnom Penh

Landing in Cambodia's capital, Phnom Penh, on June 15, immigration officials asked only the purpose of the visit, and clearing it as tourism was enough to pass through. Pakistani agent Luffy had earlier claimed there is questioning at the airport, but that he has a setting in place and his man clears immigration for 200 to 250 dollars.

Right after exiting the airport, a call to agent Vicky got a meeting fixed for 5 PM. The location he shared was in the Trapeang Rumchek area near Phnom Penh International Airport, an area dotted with warehouses, logistics companies, restaurants and apartments. On reaching the spot and calling again, Vicky asked to move ahead towards the main road. A short walk later, a boy in a black shirt and cap appeared, this was Vicky. He led the way to his house, and as soon as the door closed behind them, another boy with him shut the gate. In conversation, it emerged that Vicky is a resident of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

Vicky explained that this house doubles as his office. Boys who arrive for the scam are kept here first, before being sent on to a scam compound after a few days. He noted that the recruitment method has changed now, agents no longer call directly to a location, and it was only because the visit had been arranged through Luffy Bhai that he agreed to meet.

Advance Warning of Police Raids and Secret Escape Routes

To avoid raising Vicky's suspicion, no direct questions were asked. Instead, the pitch was that a restaurant was being planned locally, with rooms built right above it to house boys arriving from India, so that nobody would suspect anything. Vicky responded that land would not be a problem, and that he arranges legal help alongside visas. If a boy ends up in jail, he said, he has a group of lawyers on call, and he gets advance word of police raids, claiming he has evacuated boys through one door while police were entering through another.

Vicky further said that if someone wanted to run their own scam operation, he could arrange a location for that too, along with security. He even claimed to have supplied vehicles carrying police number plates.

Salaries, Commissions and the SIM Card Trade

Asked about pay, Vicky said a boy's starting salary ranges between 75 thousand and 1 lakh rupees, with commission on top based on performance. Accommodation comes with an air-conditioned room and three meals a day, and the entire job is explained once a boy arrives. It was in this part of the conversation that Vicky pointed out how much money Indians in America have, revealing that a Pakistani boy had earned over 95 lakh rupees in commission in a single month after digitally arresting an Indian customer and extracting 9.5 crore rupees from him.

Towards the end of the conversation, Vicky mentioned that Indian SIM cards are in huge demand in Cambodia, and that anyone who could deliver them there stands to make a large profit, since people coming from India bring thousands of SIM cards with them. Indian calling services also fetch money, he said, and arranging for these would mean good earnings.

Hundreds of Scam Compounds in Cherithom

After meeting Vicky, the trail led towards the actual scam compounds. Rohit, who had earlier been trapped inside one of these compounds, had mentioned a place called Cherithom, 60 km from Phnom Penh, where several such compounds have been built. Located in Cambodia's Kandal province, just 3 km from the Vietnam border, the site is lined with hundreds of white multi-storey buildings.

Every building had high outer walls topped with barbed wire, CCTV cameras installed, and large iron gates. Some compounds were locked up, while security guards stood outside others. Local associate Pong Vantha, who had travelled along from Phnom Penh, warned against stepping out of the car, since scammers roam the area. According to Pong, nobody knows the exact number of compounds here, but most of the buildings had been running cyber-scam companies, some still operating secretly, others having simply relocated.

The entire area was deserted. Photographs of the buildings were taken while staying out of sight, before reaching a slum settlement built behind one of the buildings. People there said that until a few days earlier, boys living inside the scam compound used to come here for tea and water, but after a police raid, many have since fled and the crowd has thinned out considerably. Locals said all these buildings had come up only in the last four or five years, built by Chinese developers. Where there was once nothing but fields, there are now compounds, roads and electricity.

Life Inside the Compound: Passports Seized, CCTV Everywhere

In the Cherithom compound where Rohit had been held, boys brought in for cyber scams are driven directly from the airport into the compound. Interrogation follows, and passports are confiscated. A mobile phone is handed over only once, to speak with family, and even then, video calls are not allowed.

Rooms hold 6 to 10 boys at a time, fitted out like hostels with bunk beds, and every boy remains under round-the-clock CCTV surveillance. Boys who earn the company's trust are eventually allowed brief permission to step outside the compound.

Rohit's contacts led to Zahid, who runs a restaurant in the area. Zahid said that increased scrutiny has forced a shutdown there for now, that he himself is currently in Phnom Penh, and that boys are being sent on to other countries. Everything, he said, will restart the moment the crackdown eases.

Training, Work Culture and Pay Inside the Compounds

Once inside these compounds, a week of training is provided. Rohit and his companions were trained in computer work, using messaging apps, conversing in English, and talking to targets using pre-written scripts.

After seeing the Cherithom compound, the trail moved to the Riverside area of Phnom Penh, known as a scammer's den. Boys from India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Vietnam were all found there.

A Bangladeshi Worker's Account from the Riverside Area

Speaking with his camera switched off, a Bangladeshi boy said the company had first called him to Cambodia's Siem Reap city, where it had a setup at the airport, before he was moved on to Phnom Penh. Instead of a job, the company demanded 6 lakh rupees, though he had already paid 1.5 lakh rupees. The agent told him he could only join the company once he paid the remaining 4.5 lakh rupees, and that amount was then raised further to 8 lakh rupees. His family took out loans to send the money, and only then, after 20 days stuck in a hotel, was he released.

The agent then sent him to a company called Golden Casino. The first 7 days were spent in training, where they were made to sit for 12 hours a day learning how to talk to customers. Lunch was mostly Chinese food that was barely edible. Those who did not perform well were made to work up to 20 hours at a stretch, and on many occasions had to work standing for 12 hours.

Electric Shocks and Beatings for Missing Targets

The boy said he was tortured badly. Whenever targets were missed, food was cut off first, followed by being locked in a small room with no access to a washroom and nothing to eat. One day, after he broke down crying in front of the manager, the team leader gave him electric shocks and beat him severely. It was only a week later that the manager called his agent and had him released.

With his debt too high to repay, he moved to another company, where he began earning two to three thousand dollars a month. But on April 24, that company shut down, its Chinese boss was arrested, and all the boys fled. They were told to head to Myanmar or Malaysia, and some went on to African countries. According to him, the pressure the company put on some workers was so extreme that a few took their own lives, and two of those bodies were thrown into the sea. The agents, too, disappeared.

Scam Companies Shift from Cambodia to Malaysia and Myanmar

Conversations with Pakistani agent Luffy, Manuel who works in a scam company's HR department, agent Vicky met in Cambodia, and boys who had worked inside these companies all pointed to the same pattern: operations are moving from Cambodia to countries such as Malaysia, Myanmar, Turkmenistan and Sri Lanka.

Through these same boys, a link surfaced to a recruiting agent in Kuala Lumpur. Using a reference from the boy who provided the number, contact was made with the agent, presenting the pitch of sending boys from India into scam compounds. He initially suggested meeting in Kuala Lumpur, but refused to meet in person once there. Instead, he said all the work would be done without meeting face to face, that there was an opening for Kuala Lumpur, and that boys with good English would be preferred if their videos were sent to him, after which he would arrange interviews.

The Kuala Lumpur Agent's Script and Escalating Demands

The agent then sent a script over WhatsApp, spelling out how to trap someone over a call by posing as a police, ED or CBI officer. He asked for videos of prospective boys recorded according to this script. One boy's video was sent, and the reply came back that it was fine, and that sending the boy's passport would let him arrange an interview and call the boy to Kuala Lumpur within a week.

Asked for the company's address to see it in person, the agent said it was a Chinese company with an office in the main city, but that he could not share the address since he himself had never been there. Once a boy is selected, he said, the company's own people would collect him directly from the airport. The next day, the agent sent word of openings targeting European and American markets, with a salary of 800 dollars, work to be done from Kuala Lumpur itself, but stressed that only boys willing to actually run the scam should be sent. As of this report, Luffy and Manuel remain in contact, with Manuel asking for the boys' passports and Luffy asking for a little more time before the interview.

Scam Firms Hiding in Rented Bungalows and Apartments

Locations in Malaysia where scam companies had previously been caught in police raids were also visited, though it could not be determined which buildings currently house active scam compounds. The inquiry did establish that cyber-scam companies are operating out of commercial buildings, rented bungalows or apartments in Kuala Lumpur's Old Klang Road, Kuchai Lama and Bangsar areas. From the outside, everything looks entirely ordinary, but the reality inside is very different.

Experts Weigh In: Chinese Syndicates and New Hideouts

Nathan Paul Southern, Operations Director of 'The Eye Witness' project, who has investigated several scam compounds in Cambodia on the ground, says these compounds are run by international Chinese syndicates that maintain good relations with local governments. She says the initial pitch is always a telecalling or customer service job advertised at 1200 dollars a month, and that greed is what pulls people in. Once inside the compound, she says, work is compulsory, refusal means being locked in a dark room and beaten, and armed security guards stationed outside make escape difficult, while confiscated passports and a lack of money keep people working inside regardless. She adds that the sheer operational capacity and scale at which these compounds function is staggering, and that a crackdown in one country simply sends them fleeing to the next.

Mark Taylor, who has worked on human trafficking issues in Cambodia for years, says Cambodia has become a destination for cybercrime, with companies running cyber scams linked to the gambling industry having set up base there, trapping people from many countries. He says that after crackdowns, these operations are shifting to countries like Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Myanmar, Uganda and Kenya, but that this does not mean operations in Cambodia have stopped entirely. It remains, he says, an organised network that will not be easy to eliminate.

How South-East Asia Became a Scam Hub

Between 2018 and 2021, China ran a major crackdown on online gambling, telecom fraud and crypto scams. In its wake, Chinese crime syndicates shifted their operations to Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos, countries where law and order remains weak and where administrations have shown collusion with criminal networks. Casinos built in these countries stood empty during the pandemic, and it was afterward that gangs converted these very buildings into scam centres.