It’s happened to us all: a message arrives on our phone that looks genuine but turns out to be a scam. The internet has enabled scammers worldwide to find and contact potential victims. In Southeast Asia, the problem has reached alarming proportions and generates billions of dollars. FRANCE 24’s William de Tamaris, Aruna Popuri and Justin McCurry report from Cambodia and the Myanmar border. Warning: this report contains graphic content.
In Southeast Asia, hundreds of thousands of people are employed by online scam centres to extract as much money as possible from victims. Mainly based in Cambodia and Myanmar, these cyber-scam hubs generate billions of dollars.
But the employees, too, are victims. They are trafficked by Chinese mafia groups as cheap labour. These workers are tortured, deprived of food and threatened with sexual abuse to force them to work.
Our reporters managed to get to the heart of one scamming operation and speak to some of the people whose lives have been ruined but who managed to escape.
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