27 Chinese held in Cambodia fraud probe
Print Edition
CAMBODIA has arrested 27 Chinese on suspicion of operating a telecoms extortion ring to defraud victims on China’s mainland, officials said yesterday.
Cambodia has deported more than 200 Chinese nationals since November in a crackdown on Internet and telecoms scams as Beijing battles a fast growing industry in telecoms fraud that has driven some victims to suicide.
Chinese and Cambodian authorities have coordinated to uncover scams orchestrated from Cambodia.
Police there said people in Cambodia would call people in China asking for money to free relatives allegedly held captive or for other fictitious reasons.
“We are questioning them and if we find them guilty of the crimes, we will deport them,” Uk Heisela, chief of investigations at Cambodia’s immigration department, told reporters yesterday after the latest arrests.
“Their alleged crimes were all the same, they extorted money via phone from victims in China.”
The 27 — 15 from Chinese mainland and the rest from Taiwan — were arrested in a raid at a villa in the capital Phnom Penh on Monday, Heisela said.
Since 2011, Taiwan and China’s mainland have cooperated in investigating telecoms fraud in Indonesia, Cambodia, the Philippines and other countries, arresting more than 7,700 suspects, including 4,600 from Taiwan, Xinhua news agency said.
“This is happening all over the world,” said Khun Sambor, Cambodia’s deputy director of immigration. “Cambodia is just a small percentage of it.” Sambor said he didn’t know why Cambodia had become a base for some of those involved.
Chinese authorities say criminal gangs based in Taiwan are behind many of the scams.
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