12/9/2023 0 Comments Vice media cambodia![]() But despite crackdowns on compounds throughout the country, sources on the front line of a cross-border effort to rescue victims say the crisis isn’t going away.īased on over a dozen interviews with recent victims of trafficking, and interviews with law enforcement and others responding to the crisis, the criminal cartels appear undeterred. According to the Immanuel Foundation and Thai authorities, the criminal syndicates are relocating to Myanmar, the Philippines, and even as far afield as Dubai. In response to international pressure, Cambodian authorities have made attempts to clamp down on the syndicates, occasionally raiding compounds and freeing victims. Experts believe that the casinos in Cambodia and elsewhere in the region, already known for laundering money with links to organized crime, are involved. What is known, however, is that they are often run by Chinese nationals, working closely with corrupt local officials. It’s unclear who is behind the operations, but experts say many criminal groups are tapping into this new illicit market. Jacob Sims, Cambodia director for International Justice Mission, an NGO that works with victims of human trafficking and forced labor, told VICE World News in July, “What’s going on inside these scamming compounds feels like a true humanitarian crisis.” Thai law enforcement sources and Immanuel Foundation told VICE World News that the number could be close to 100,000 considering the range of locations across Southeast Asia. A VICE World News investigation in July pieced together various estimates from officials and victims, placing the number of victims in Cambodia alone at more than 10,000. We know they don’t want any problems.”Ī significant number of victims are Chinese nationals, while Malaysian, Taiwanese, Indonesian, Philippine, Vietnamese, and Thai nationals have all been reported among trafficking victims. But often with these interceptions, the victims are delivered in public vans, or the driver has been told very little, or in many cases they just give up the victims when we confront them. ![]() Tawanchai’s volunteers saw what was happening and intervened, pulling the victim away before he disappeared into Poipet’s crowded streets. When one of the young trafficking victims went downstairs to browse for snacks at a corner store, an unidentified man, likely with the Chinese cartel, tried to force him into his tuk tuk. While they waited for the land border crossing to open up, the rescuers and victims hunkered down together in a small hotel. This time they were lucky-there were no armed guards accompanying the trafficking victims, a rare occurrence but something that he said they must be prepared for. Once the bus came to a stop, the volunteers burst from their vehicles, Tawanchai said. “I called the victim with the hidden phone and explained that we’re not far behind.” “All night my team was awake, following closely behind them,” he said. He requested a pseudonym to protect himself from the criminal syndicates he targets through his work as he recalled how events unfolded in an interview with VICE World News in Bangkok. There, they’re abused and forced to steal from strangers worldwide using sophisticated online scams, in an industry responsible for the theft of potentially billions of dollars each year.Ī Thai man in his 40s, Tawanchai is the Immanuel Foundation’s director, and led five volunteers conducting that rescue. It represents just one of a growing number of rescue efforts responding to a human trafficking crisis that has taken root in Southeast Asia since 2020, as low-wage workers have been lured from across the region into industrial-scale scam mills. The operation late last year-led by the Immanuel Foundation, a newly-formed anti-trafficking group consisting of former police investigators, retired military, and other volunteers-had been in the works for weeks. "I think we’re coming to a stop,” he wrote. When the bus pulled over at a gas station, the young man messaged an investigator leading the operation. ![]() They were in communication with another victim inside who had kept a phone hidden from his captors. ![]() Following behind were anti-trafficking volunteers, tailing the vehicle through the night. The bus had been driving for nine hours from the Cambodian coastal city of Sihanoukville. It was like going to hell all over again,” Chatri, a pseudonym given for his safety, told VICE World News in an interview in Thailand after his rescue from Cambodia. He didn’t know it at the time, but they were the casinos of Poipet-a shadowy Cambodian town on the border with Thailand known for gambling, crime, and increasingly, human trafficking. The 16-year-old was attempting to figure out where they were when he noticed a gleam of lights ahead. ![]()
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