Thailand strikes Cambodian border casinos linked to cyberscamming, as PM demands action on fraud hubs amid ongoing military conflict
BANGKOK: Thailand has struck multiple casinos linked to cyberscamming in neighbouring Cambodia during an ongoing border conflict.
Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul said he would “take care” of fronts for fraud operations.
Across Southeast Asia, criminal gangs have used casinos and fortified compounds to carry out sophisticated cyberscams, often relying on trafficked people.
Cambodia hosts dozens of the scam centres with an estimated 100,000 people perpetrating online scams in a multibillion-dollar industry.
At least four casinos on Cambodia’s border with Thailand have been struck this month in a military conflict that has killed dozens and displaced more than half a million.
Two of those casinos have been identified by monitors as scam hubs.
UN human rights chief Volker Turk said trafficked foreign nationals forced to carry out scams in Cambodia were “now exposed to further risk by the fighting”.
He called for their evacuation.
Efforts to make peace with Cambodia rested on Phnom Penh’s commitment to “destroy scamming attempts”, Thailand’s Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul told reporters.
If casinos in Cambodia were hiding fraud operations, “then we will regard it as a scamming centre that we need to take care of”, he said.
A June report by Amnesty International said rights abuses in Cambodia’s scam centres are happening on a “mass scale”.
Ros Phirun, secretary general of Cambodia’s Commercial Gambling Management Commission, said authorities were taking “serious action” to crack down on scams.
He called Thailand’s action on the border casinos “totally illegal”.
Thailand last week said it attacked three casinos which the army claimed were being used as Cambodian weapons storage facilities and firing positions.
“Every scam centre and casino we attacked, we had clear intelligence that it was used as a military base,” deputy Thai army spokesman Richa Suksuwanon said.
But some casinos caught in the crossfire reportedly housed civilians.
A UN statement cited a survivor of a strike who said one civilian was killed and two others wounded.
The O’Smach resort and casino was identified by Amnesty International as a scam compound.
It was built by Cambodian conglomerate L.Y.P Group headed by sanctioned Cambodian senator Ly Yong Phat.
Thailand issued an arrest warrant for the tycoon last month for his alleged involvement in transnational crimes.
It also seized RM1.4 billion in assets from other Cambodian businessmen.
O’Smach and other targeted casino sites had potentially thousands of victims of human trafficking inside, according to analyst Jacob Sims.
“Bombing scam compounds is not a reasonable approach to combatting the scam industry,” he said.
He added that Thailand’s asset seizures were more effective.
“The existence of the scam compounds offers Thailand a useful pretext for extraterritorial aggression that would otherwise likely be condemned,” Sims said. – AFP
