কম্বোডিয়া: সাইবার চক্রে মানুষ বেচা-কেনা হয় যেখানে

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Our Survivor Empowerment Officer, MD Abdus Salam, was recently interviewed along with two other Bangladeshi survivors as part of a documentary produced by The Daily Star, Bangladesh. The documentary reveals how people are being trafficked from Bangladesh to Cambodia to work as slaves in scamming compounds, where they are forced to work for 14-20 hrs a day, carrying out scams on people from the United States and Europe. The survivors reveal how those in the compounds are given little to no monthly leave and often do not receive any form of salary.

Those who are not willing to scam are beaten with electric shock batons, or denied food. Salam exposes the type of scamming they had to carry out, such as creating fake social media personas and engaging with Westerners by presenting as a potential love interest, then tricking them into investing cryptocurrency into fake trading apps that are designed by the scammers within the criminal network. This is known as ‘pig butchering’.

Many of the victims in the compounds are recruited through Bangladeshi recruitment agencies, who work in collaboration with the traffickers. Bangladeshi victims are also becoming traffickers and are offered $2000-5000 payment for recruiting others into the compounds. The role of the Bangladesh Embassy is also highlighted as it is revealed that embassy employees have been demanding bribes of up to $500 from survivors in exchange for helping them.

This documentary is crucial in order to spread awareness across Bangladesh, where victims are on the rise, with the first two weeks of 2023 seeing 86 people being trafficked into the scamming compounds.

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