Chinese criminal syndicates under guise of business ventures on the rise in SE Asia

Several Chinese syndicates are along the border between Cambodia and Thailand. The syndicates have taken advantage of COVID-19 which has rendered many youth unemployed, ET has learnt.

There is an increasing economic integration between China and Southeast Asia over the past decade, which has seen sharp increase in Chinese investment in the region. But such enterprises have an illegal dimension. The activities are also taking place in territories and special economic zones that exist beyond the effective reach of the host country’s legal apparatus.

In a cross-border operation on April 10-11, the Thai and Cambodian police rescued 68 Thai workers from Chinese scam gangs that were running call centers in Sihanoukville in western Cambodia, the capital Phnom Penh and Krong Bavet on the border with Vietnam.

The workers were tricked into running telephone scams under guidance of Chinese nationals.

“The workers were lured through social media with promises of high-paying online sales jobs in Poipet, a Cambodian town on the border with Thailand. As soon as they arrived in Cambodia, their travel documents were seized and they were held and forced by racketeers to make scam calls in their own languages. Instead of online sales, workers were told to make unsolicited phone calls posing as customs officers, policemen or potential investors looking to secure a bank transfer,” according to report in The Irrawaddy. “The workers were lured through social media with promises of high-paying online sales jobs in Poipet, a Cambodian town on the border with Thailand. As soon as they arrived in Cambodia, their travel documents were seized and they were held and forced by racketeers to make scam calls in their own languages. Instead of online sales, workers were told to make unsolicited phone calls posing as customs officers, policemen or potential investors looking to secure a bank transfer,” The Irrawaddy reported.

Media reports from Southeast Asia reveal that hundreds of Malaysians, Filipinos and Indonesians have also been lured to Cambodia by organized crime groups based in and around Sihanoukville, a city notorious for lawlessness, casinos and Chinese criminal gangs.

Similar operations have been exposed in the past as well. In November 2021, Cambodian police rescued 99 Thai workers from a building in Phnom Penh where they were held and forced into illegal work by a Chinese gang.

Thai police estimate that over 1,500 Thais are still working in scam call centers in cities like Phnom Penh, Sihanoukville and Poipet, held against their will by the scam gangs. They have already rescued 800 Thai nationals from criminal gangs in Cambodia since October 2021, according to The Irrawaddy report.

These activities are a by-product of China’s economic boom and increasing connectivity to remote parts of Southeast Asia. Lacklustre law enforcement along border areas have also contributed to it.