South Korean officials said Wednesday that they were trying to bring back missing South Koreans from Cambodia, where hundreds of people have disappeared into online scam centers that steal billions of dollars from victims worldwide.
Outrage in South Korea has grown after 330 people were reported missing after traveling to Cambodia this year, including a 22-year-old university student who was later found dead. Others have been tortured and confined by those running the scams, South Korean officials said.
The victims were lured by high-paying job offers, only to be forced to defraud other South Koreans, officials said.
Most of those reported to have disappeared have since been accounted for, but 79 were still missing in Cambodia, Wi Sung-lac, South Korea’s national security director said at a news conference on Wednesday. He added that the government would also try to repatriate about 60 people who had been detained by the Cambodian authorities.
South Korea is the latest nation to try to combat Cambodia’s scam industry.
In February, China led a crackdown on scam compounds in Myanmar and Cambodia. On Tuesday, the United States and Britain imposed sanctions on parts of a Cambodian conglomerate, Prince Group, which they said was running scam networks worldwide. U.S. federal prosecutors indicted its chairman, Chen Zhi, and seized $15 billion in cryptocurrency that they said were proceeds from his fraud and money laundering schemes.
South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said that, starting Thursday, it was barring South Koreans from traveling to parts of Cambodia where scams and human confinements were rife.
Some Southeast Asian countries, like Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar, have become hotbeds for online fraud. Scammers based in the region stole at least $10 billion from victims in the United States last year, the Treasury Department said. South Korean nationals were defrauded of about $148 million in 2023, according to a report last year by the U.N. Office of Drugs and Crime.
Criminal groups traffic people to porous border regions of Southeast Asian countries, often through false job advertisements, to carry out scams in their native language. People from China, Southeast Asia, South Asia and Africa make up the majority of those trafficked to scam compounds, but some South Koreans are also lured by promises of high pay.
About 200,000 people of various nationalities are involved in Cambodia’s scam industry, Mr. Wi said. He said that about 1,000 were believed to be South Korean.
Advertisements targeting South Koreans on online job boards and Telegram, the online messaging app, seen by The New York Times promised weekly payments of at least 5 million won (around $3,500), more than the average worker in South Korea makes in a month.
Organized crime groups from South Korea run scam operations in Cambodia that are smaller in scale than the thousand-strong compounds owned by Chinese syndicates, said Jeremy Douglas, the chief of staff and strategy at the U.N. Office of Drugs and Crime. Smaller rings run by young Koreans in their 20s and 30s are also operated in Cambodia, Mr. Douglas said.
Mr. Wi said that some South Koreans traveled to Cambodia intending to be involved in illegal activities, and that some willingly returned to Cambodia after coming home. He added that the South Korean government would work to prevent people from seeking high-paying jobs in Cambodia.
Park Chan-dae, a South Korean lawmaker, said in a public hearing on Monday that some of those kidnapped had endured harsh treatment.
“Some were forced to take drugs, sexually assaulted and subjected to medical exams for the purpose of organ trafficking,” he said. “Every minute and every second was a matter of life and death.” They were able to escape or reach their families through Telegram, leading to their repatriation, he said.
Lee Jeong-sook, the president of the Korean Rescue Organization, a nonprofit that has helped extract South Koreans from Cambodia, said in a news conference on Wednesday that the people running the crime operations would confine those who refused to work, as well as beating them, torturing them, or extorting funds from their families.
Park Minho, the 22-year-old university student, died of a heart attack caused by “severe torture,” the Cambodian government said in a statement on Tuesday. The statement said that his body had been found in August in a Ford pickup truck, and that he had been living in a building that the authorities later identified as a base for a scam operation.
Three Chinese people and two others have been charged in connection to Mr. Park’s death and running scam operations, the Cambodian government said, adding that it was working with South Korean officials to locate other accomplices.
After its crackdown in February, China repatriated hundreds of people freed from scam centers in Myanmar, where they were forced by Chinese criminals to engage in investment and cryptocurrency fraud, online dating cons and other schemes.
While Chinese syndicates are still the main players in the scam industry, Mr. Douglas said, the recent lull created an opportunity for Japanese and Korean criminal actors who were already in the region.
“The crackdown by China no doubt created a space for others and played a role in the diversification, but it was already happening,” he said.
John Yoon is a Times reporter based in Seoul who covers breaking and trending news.
Francesca Regalado is a Times reporter covering breaking news.
The post South Korea Targets Cambodia’s Scam Industry After Kidnappings, Torture and a Death appeared first on New York Times.
