Storming past guards, 60 foreigner workers escape from Cambodian casino

Wielding metal rods, nearly 60 foreigner workers –- many from Nepal and Pakistan –- stormed past security guards to escape from a northern Cambodian casino complex that’s home to an online scam operation, police said.

Armed with rods fashioned from bed frames, the workers forced their way out of a gate near the Thai border in Oddar Meanchey province at about 5 p.m. on Sunday, according to provincial police official Bou Boran.

The workers were fed up with the physical punishment they faced at the O’Smach resort, owned by Cambodian tycoon Ly Yong Phat, according to a local resident who witnessed the breakout.

“Guards couldn’t stop or resist them, causing two to be wounded,” the resident said, requesting anonymity for security reasons. “They beat up the security guards, opened the door and rushed out.”

(RFA)

In September, Ly Yong Phat and his LYP Group were sanctioned by the United States because of the company’s alleged links to human trafficking and forced labor at several casinos in Cambodia, including O’Smach resort.

Vast networks of human trafficking claim over 150,000 victims a year in Southeast Asia, mostly in Myanmar and Cambodia.

People are often trapped inside gated compounds where they are forced to work 16 hours a day looking for people to swindle on messaging apps or through phone calls. Those who don’t meet their quotas face beatings and torture.

The 57 workers walked more than 5 km (3.2 miles) after they left O-Smach resort, Bou Boran said. Police shuttled them from there to the provincial capital, Samroang, where they were questioned, he said.

The workers didn’t specify why they had fled the building, only said that they wanted to change where they worked, he said.

“I asked them what was wrong and they said they wanted to go to work in Poipet,” Bou Boran said, referring to another Thai border town -– about 200 km (124 miles) from O-Smach –- that’s home to a half dozen casinos.

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Authorities should conduct an investigation into trafficking and forced labor at O-Smach resort, said Dy The Hoya, the migration program director at the Phnom Penh-based Center for Alliance of Labor and Human Rights, or CENTRAL.

There have been many reports of foreigners of many nationalities –- not just Nepalese and Pakistanis -– that have been forced to do online scam work in areas along the Thai border, but authorities have yet to do a definitive investigation, he said.

“We want to see all transparency and integrity, with the participation of stakeholders, especially Interpol, because this is a transnational crime,” he said. “It’s not just a crime in Cambodia. If we aren’t taking this seriously, the benefit would go to the criminals while our country loses its reputation.”

Translated by Sum Sok Ry. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.