Amnesty accuses Cambodian government of allowing slavery and torture to flourish inside scamming compounds

Visiting more than 50 scamming compounds in an 18-month-long research, Amnesty International (AI) said testimony from survivors details human trafficking, slavery and forced labour affecting thousands, pointing out “state complicity” in abuses carried out by Chinese criminal gangs

The global human rights protection campaigning organisation accuses the Cambodian government that it is deliberately ignoring a litany concerning human rights abuses, including slavery, human trafficking, child labour and torture being carried out by criminal gangs on a vast scale in more than 50 scamming compounds located across the country.

In its new report published today, “I Was Someone Else’s Property”, survivors interviewed believed they were applying for genuine jobs, but were instead trafficked to Cambodia, where they were held in prison-like compounds, and forced to conduct online scams in a billion-dollar shadow economy defrauding people around the world.

“Deceived, trafficked and enslaved, the survivors of these scamming compounds describe being trapped in a living nightmare – enlisted in criminal enterprises that are operating with the apparent consent of the Cambodian government,” Amnesty International’s Secretary General Agnes Callamard said. “Jobseekers from Asia and beyond are lured by the promise of well-paid work into hellish labour camps run by well-organised gangs, where they are forced to scam under the very real threat of violence.

Amnesty’s research reveals the horrifying magnitude of a crisis that the Cambodian authorities are not doing enough to stop. Their failures have emboldened a criminal network whose tentacles extend internationally, with millions of people impacted by the scams, its secretary general pointed out. 

Amnesty’s findings suggest there has been coordination and possibly collusion between Chinese compound bosses and the Cambodian police, who have failed to shut down compounds despite the slew of human rights abuses taking place inside.

In the most comprehensive documentation yet of the issue, Amnesty’s 240-page report identified at least 53 scamming compounds in 16 towns in Cambodia. 45 similar sites are also strongly suspected of being scamming compounds. Many of the buildings were formerly casinos and hotels repurposed by criminal gangs – mostly from China – after Cambodia banned online gambling in 2019.

Compounds appeared designed to keep people inside, with features such as surveillance cameras, barbed wire around perimeter walls and large numbers of security personnel, often carrying electric shock batons and in some cases firearms. Survivors reported that “escape was impossible”.

The organisation managed to interview 58 survivors of eight different nationalities, including nine children. Amnesty also reviewed the records of 336 other victims of Cambodian compounds. Those interviewed had either escaped from compounds, been rescued or had a ransom paid by their families. 

Most victims had been lured to Cambodia by deceptive job advertisements posted on social media sites such as Facebook and Instagram.

After being trafficked, survivors said they were forced to contact people using social media platforms and begin conversations aimed at defrauding them. These included fake romances or investment opportunities, selling products that would never be delivered, or building trust with victims before financially exploiting them – known as “pig-butchering”.

All but one of the survivors interviewed were victims of human trafficking, while everyone had been subjected to forced labour under the threat of violence. In 32 cases, Amnesty concluded the survivors were victims of slavery as defined under international law, with compound managers exerting a level of control over them that amounted to de facto ownership. Survivors also reported being sold into compounds or witnessing the sale of other people. Many others were told they owed a debt to the compound, which they had to work to repay.

Forty of the 58 survivors interviewed had suffered torture or other ill-treatment – almost always carried out by compound managers. Some compounds had specific rooms – often known as “dark rooms” – which were designated places forthe  torture of people who did not or could not work or meet work targets, or who contacted the authorities.

Survivors frequently mentioned deaths inside the compounds or nearby; one survivor described hearing a body hitting the roof of a building. Amnesty International also confirmed the death of a Chinese child inside a compound.

The interviewees’ testimony gives a detailed insight into a sprawling, violent criminal operation that is taking place often with “the full knowledge” of the Cambodian authorities, whose woefully ineffective – and at times “corrupt” – response to the scamming crisis demonstrates its acquiescence and state complicity in the human rights abuses taking place, the organisation noted.

The government’s failure

Amnesty International’s report found that the Cambodian government has failed to adequately investigate widespread human rights abuses at the scamming compounds despite being repeatedly made aware of them.

“The Cambodian authorities know what is going on inside scamming compounds, yet they allow it to continue. Our findings reveal a pattern of state failures that have allowed criminality to flourish and raise questions about the government’s motivations,” Amnesty International’s Regional Research Director Montse Ferrer said.

The government has claimed to be addressing the scamming crisis through its National Committee to Combat Human Trafficking (NCCT) and a number of ministerial task forces, which have overseen a series of police “rescues” of victims from compounds.

However, more than two-thirds of the scamming compounds identified in the report continued to operate even after police raids and “rescues”. At one compound in Botum Sakor, human trafficking has been widely reported by the media, and police have intervened multiple times to rescue victims, yet the site remains open.

Amnesty accuses that police failings stem from their collaboration or coordination with compound bosses. For example, in many of the “rescues”, instead of entering the compounds and investigating, police would simply meet a manager or security guard at the gate, where they would be handed the individual(s) who had called in for help. Business then continued as usual. In other instances, several survivors said they were punished with beatings after their secretive efforts to contact police for help were somehow uncovered by bosses, Amnesty said.

Those “rescued” from compounds were often subsequently detained in immigration detention centres in poor conditions for months at a time – the Cambodian authorities having failed to recognise them as victims of human trafficking and provide them with the support required under international law, Amnesty noted.

Meanwhile, the authorities have targeted others speaking out about scamming compounds. Several human rights defenders and journalists working on the issue have been arrested, while the news outlet Voice of Democracy was closed in 2023 in apparent retaliation for its reporting on the scamming crisis, the organisation noted.

Amnesty said it sent its findings to the NCCT, which responded by sharing vague data on interventions at compounds, none of which clarified whether the state has identified, investigated or prosecuted individuals for human rights abuses other than deprivation of liberty. It also did not respond to Amnesty International’s list of scamming compounds or suspicious locations.

“The Cambodian government could put a stop to these abuses, but it has chosen not to. The police interventions documented appear to be merely ‘for show’,” Montse Ferrer said.

Read a full report at https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/asa23/9447/2025/en/

Also read: Thai PM levels up measures against cybercrimes in neighbouring countries including Cambodia, now in border dispute with Thailand/ UNODC’s Inflection Point 2025/ Policies and Patterns: State-Abetted Transnational Crime in Cambodia as a Global Security Threat