South Korea on Wednesday issued a “code-black” travel ban to parts of Cambodia in the wake of the death of a college student there in August.
The South Korean Foreign Ministry said the ban includes the Bokor Mountain area in Kampot Province, Bavet City, and Poipet City.
“South Korean nationals visiting or staying in those areas may be subject to penalties under the Passport Act and other relevant regulations. Citizens planning to travel to such areas are therefore strongly advised to cancel their trips.”
The case highlighted the growing problem of fake job offers leading to the abduction of potentially hundreds of South Korean citizens.
South Korea is now sending a special team of investigators to Cambodia to confer with authorities there about the situation as relates to the student but more specifically, internet scam compounds.
“It is believed that around 200,000 people of various nationalities are working in Cambodia’s scam industry, which targets victims worldwide, including in South Korea,” National Security Adviser Wi Sung-lac told reporters on Wednesday.
“A considerable number of South Koreans are also thought to be employed there. While the exact figure is difficult to verify, domestic authorities generally estimate the number at around 1,000.”
Although Seoul initially reported that 330 South Koreans had gone missing in Cambodia, it has since revised that number down to 80
South Korea believes that 63 of those 80 are now in Cambodian detention after authorities there carried out arrests in connection with the scam centers.
Seoul says it is “committed to bringing all South Korean nationals back home.”
“We are arranging a flight to bring them home … We aim to complete this by the end of the week,” said National Security Adviser Wi.
Of the 63 detained, Wi said there were both “voluntary and involuntary participants.”
“Most of them should be regarded as having committed criminal acts” for taking part in the schemes, he said, regardless of their initial intentions.
South Korean officials tasked with discussing the scam compounds and the repatriation of missing citizens will be accompanied by intelligence and police representatives investigating the recent death of the South Korean college student.
Initial investigations and an autopsy performed on the student’s body, which was found in the bed of a pick-up truck on August 8, concluded that he had “died as a result of severe torture, with multiple bruises and injuries across his body.”
On August 11, three Chinese nationals were charged with the student’s murder as well as with online fraud. The three remain in pretrial detention in Cambodia.
Seoul says that many of those who end up at the scam centers are lured with fraudulent promises of high-paying jobs.
However, the more than 50 scam compounds operating in Cambodia are organized by criminal groups involved in kidnapping, human trafficking, forced labor, slavery, deprivation of liberty, and torture.
Rights group Amnesty International says the centers are operating on a “mass scale.”
Late Tuesday, US authorities announced that they had seized nearly $15 billion (€17.4 billion) in bitcoin and charged UK-Cambodian businessman Chen Zhi with running scam centers exploiting forced labor to carry out cryptocurrency fraud schemes that netted billions of dollars.
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) called it the “largest forfeiture action” in DOJ history.
The DOJ indictment against Chen says laborers engaged in the practice of “pig butchering” — that is, gradually gaining an investor’s trust before stealing their money — to rake in billions under threat of violence in prison-like conditions.
Attorney General Pam Bondi said, “Today’s action represents one of the most significant strikes ever against the global scourge of human trafficking and cyber-enabled financial fraud.”
On Tuesday, as the US and UK seized assets and announced sanctions against Chen’s Prince Holding Company, the US Department of Treasury labeled the company a transnational criminal organization.
Chen remains at large and could face up to 40 years in prison if tried and convicted.
The Treasury Department logged a 66% increase in the amount of money US citizens and businesses lost to such scams last year, up to more than $10 billion.
Most scam centers are operated out of Cambodia and Myanmar, mainly run by Chinese criminal organizations.
AFP reported Tuesday that despite an attempted crackdown, new militarized call centers are rapidly spreading in Myanmar, where they are using Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites to gain access to the internet.
