Cambodia says it has closed almost 200 scam centers

Cambodia has closed almost 200 scam centres in a crackdown on transnational fraud in recent weeks, with authorities providing rare access to one centre in a bid to show they are tackling the sophisticated ⁠operations targeting people across the globe. “



There are about 190 locations that we have sealed off now,” according to Chhay Sinarith, the deputy chief of Cambodia's Secretariat of the Commission for Combating Online Scams,



Chhay added 173 senior crime figures linked to the centres had been arrested and 11,000 workers deported in a campaign that began late last year after the U.S. indicted and then China extradited a China-born alleged scam kingpin in the strongest international move so far against the criminal networks.



Since then, thousands of scam workers, some of them trafficking victims confined in brutal conditions, have fled compounds in recent weeks seeking to return home, in what Amnesty International has called a “humanitarian crisis.”



At the Kampot compound, reporters were shown large work rooms with rows of computer stations and desks strewn with documents instructing how to scam Thai victims, as well as studio booths for phone calls and a fake Indian police station.