Caught in Cambodia’s Scam Machine: Part 1

0:02I'm Aisha Roscoe, and you're listening to The Sunday Story from Up First. So we've come in through the back now. Security guards stopped us. They didn't allow me to take any photos. Earlier this year, investigative reporter Shibani Mahtani visited a massive industrial complex outside of Cambodia's capital, Phnom Penh. It's set up like an office park, but it's fortified against the outside world. There's barbed wire all around, CCTVs. You can see lookout posts as well on the top of the buildings. People once lived here, about 20 ,000 of them. Looks like dormitories, sort of white buildings with black rails and with bars on the windows.

0:52And it's clear that it was abruptly abandoned. So much trash. It's a whole little city. I mean, Times Square could fit in this. So all of these are hallmarks of a scam compound. This cyber scam compound is among dozens in Cambodia that operated with impunity for years. Migrants were brought to these places from throughout Asia and Africa and put to work scamming people on the other side of the world. According to the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center, the cyber scam industry managed to defraud Americans of more than$20 billion last year. And in 2024, experts estimated that profits from the cyber scamming industry were equivalent to roughly half of Cambodia's formal GDP.

1:45But in the last several months, under international pressure, the Cambodian government has accelerated a sweeping crackdown on the industry. Scam operations have been raided and shut down, and more than 200 ,000 scam workers have been released. With this ongoing effort, reporters have gained unprecedented access to a previously hidden world. Today on The Sunday Story, we have an exclusive two-part series on the global cyber scam industry. We're going to take a deeper look, not from the perspective of people who were scammed, but from the people who once took part in the scamming. Shabani Matani is based in Singapore.

2:39She's been covering Southeast Asia for more than 15 years, and she's been following the cyber scam industry for the past three. When we come back, Shabani Matani takes us to Cambodia. Support for this podcast and the following message come from Strawberry.me. Be honest. Are you happy with your job? Are you stuck in a job you've outgrown or never wanted in the first place? Are your reasons for staying really just excuses for not leaving? Let a career coach from strawberry.me help you get unstuck. Discover the benefits of having a dedicated career coach in your corner and get 50 % off your first coaching session at strawberry.me slash NPR.

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4:02Investing in securities involves the risk of loss. We're back with the Sunday story. Here's investigative reporter Shabani Matani. Since January, the Cambodian government has ramped up its raids on scam compounds across the country. And as a result, some 200 ,000 scam workers have poured into the streets of Phnom Penh. These people are from all over the world, at least 35 countries. and I saw reports of people streaming to the embassy gates, literally waiting outside, banging on the door, asking for help to be repatriated home. And even today, many of them are still unable to get home. So this spring, I decided to go to Phnom Penh and try to speak to some of them.

4:48I wanted to know what was their first-hand experience of the scam industry. How did they end up in Cambodia? I thought they could give an unfiltered view of the inner workings of this industry. I spoke to dozens of people on that trip. Most of the scam workers were from China and also from Indonesia. But it surprised me how many of them came from Africa.

5:13Shibani Mahtani:My name is Ishmael. My name is Oscar. My name is Ama. And all the stories were actually remarkably similar. I was trafficked in Cambodia for like a fake promise of a job. The job was offering$1 ,200. So I was like, wow, this is a good opportunity. So I texted them, and in a week or two, I was able to travel and come. In recent years, crime syndicates have focused on scamming Westerners. So they've heavily recruited workers from English-speaking countries in Africa, like Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone. On this trip, the majority of the Africans I spoke to were from Uganda. Sometimes, you know, it was difficult to get deep into conversation.

6:01You know, some of them were also obviously very cautious because they didn't want to expose the inner workings of scam compounds that they believed were still so powerful. But I did manage to sit down and get to know one man really, really well. and that was through a friend of mine who introduced me to him. My friend, his name is Mej Dara. He's a Cambodian journalist based in Phnom Penh. And Dara and I, we spent the week together zooming around in his little tuk-tuk. He's also a tuk-tuk driver sometimes to earn extra money. And it was through Dara that I got introduced to one Ugandan man in particular.

6:44His name is Schweib, and he's 24. We would come to know each other pretty well over the next few weeks. Schweib and I ended up meeting in person for the first time at a Cambodian burger chain called Lucky Burgers. I saw him from the back first. I could see even from the door when I went in that he was pretty tall, but mostly really lanky. He was wearing sort of dark grey baseball cap and acid wash jeans and a greyish black t-shirt. When we sat down, he had his phone out and he was taking little notes on his phone and he seemed kind of nervous. Then once he started speaking, I had to sort of figure out times that I could interrupt him.

7:29Because once he started talking, he really opened up about his story and just got really into it and kept going. Schwebe asked me to identify him by just his first name for his security because what he shares about the inner workings of these criminal syndicates which continue to operate today and his own role could put him at risk Schwebe told me his story from the beginning before he even arrived in Cambodia and you know I think it's important because it reveals the long and really the truly global reach of the scam industry So Shwaib is from Kampala, the capital of Uganda. One day in January of 2025, he was sick in bed scrolling TikTok, when he saw something that made him stop for a little bit.

8:18It was a target job ad on his For You page, promising somewhere between$800 to$1 ,000 for a month's work in Cambodia.

8:32So at first he actually dismissed it, and he kept scrolling.

8:48And right away, he was sent a WhatsApp number to continue the conversation with a recruiter. The recruiter told him that there were a few different positions available, that there was a lot of work. He could be a supermarket attendant, a delivery driver, or a warehouse worker. And on top of that, they would even cover his visa and his travel expenses, and food and accommodation once he got there. It was a pretty big deal because in Kampala, someone like Schwebe could only earn about$150,$200 a month. The person on the other end of the phone was offering him up to$1 ,000 a month.

9:22Shibani Mahtani:I was like, ah, that's a big income. I can go there maybe like two years, I can get some sort of income. And I said, OK, it is OK. I don't care which work I will be doing, as long as I get paid. Schweib had always relied on himself. He has 10 siblings. And both his parents passed away by the time he was 18. So he had to drop out of school and get a job. He worked in kitchens for a few years, eventually getting promoted to a chef. Everything was going so well. Then I became sick. Schweib struggled for years with debilitating stomach ulcers. The stress of his work sometimes made them worse, and eventually he was forced to take bed rest.

10:11After those initial messages, the recruiter told Schweib what they needed from him, and it actually wasn't much.

10:19Shibani Mahtani:Then I filled up the papers, everything they asked me for. He sent them his passport information and filled out all his personal details. I did everything they asked me to. And everything was just moving so quickly that it didn't seem real. By the time I took it to Cilius, it was when they asked me, when are you going to travel? Then I told them two weeks. I told them, can you travel in one week? Then I was like, OK. Then after like two days, they sent me a visa. The visa of Cambodia. Then after like two days, that's when they sent me a ticket. This is a miracle. I never spent any coin. Everything came in so smooth, but I was like, it was too good to be true.

11:14Schweib had to leave in a hurry. When he got to the airport in Kampala, he met a group of 10 others, all guys who were also headed to Cambodia. They showed their passports and were quickly ushered through.

11:25Shibani Mahtani:The guy was like, kind of, he was so friendly. The guy asked me, is this your first time to travel? And I was like, yes, it is my first time to travel. And I said, OK, good luck. Then he stamped in, then he proceeded.

11:40Shraibit never stepped foot on a plane before, so as he boarded, he felt such a rush of emotion.

11:46Shibani Mahtani:And I was so happy. I was so happy, I took some pictures. Then when the plane left off, that's when I knew that now this is real. I'm out of home. Then we go and do what? Then we go and search for, get some money. Then I come back home. Shraib landed in the Phnom Penh airport on February 10th, 2025. His new employers had sent a driver to pick him up outside the terminal. The car, it was Lexus. It was a Lexus? Yeah, it was Lexus. Oh, wow. And the driver even helped him with his bags. We were like the bosses at the time. The guy took our bags. Then he told us, you follow me, you follow me. Then he went to the car.

12:29It felt like VIP treatment. The group of 10 Ugandans split up into different cars. So it was just Shwaib and one other guy who got into the Lexus, bound for the same location. And then they drove and drove, and they kept driving. They drove at night, and he really couldn't get his bearings. It was totally pitch dark, and the main thing that was illuminating the streets were just the lights of the cars on the road with him. Beyond that, there wasn't much to see. And after they drove for such a long time through these buttholed roads and deserted roads, suddenly he saw a city come into view, and suddenly he felt a totally different pulse.

13:20he started to hear music.

13:22Shibani Mahtani:There are a lot of people there. A lot of music. Almost like a party. It was like a festival. It's like 10 p.m. And somehow everyone was awake. He thought it was like a rave, actually, because they're playing this music and it was music that he liked. It is good music. It is EDM. EDM music with heavy beats. And he stepped out of the car and he thinks, oh my gosh, like, wow, where have I landed? This is going to be good. people here seem to really be enjoying themselves.

13:59As Shraib entered the compound, the illuminated sign said Bavette Business Centre. He noticed how multinational it was. He saw Chinese people, he saw Filipinos, he saw Vietnamese people, he heard a lot of different languages.

14:23When the driver dropped him off, he left, and there was another guy who brought him in. This guy was Chinese, and he introduced himself as the boss of the company. He greeted him and asked him to hand over his passport. So Shui gave him his passport. Someone showed him a room and told him that was the room that he would be staying in, and that he was going to share that room with a number of other guys too.

14:49Shibani Mahtani:Now you have to rest. We will get back to you tomorrow since you are tired.

14:57Shibani Mahtani:Then we slept. The next day he signed his contract. We were called in the office. We had to sign the contract. The contract was in Chinese. Then there were also some parts of English. And the contract stipulated that he would be paid$850 a month they would provide him three meals a day and accommodation.

15:23Schweib says they walked him to his station and to help him get set up, they told him what to download. A VPN, Telegram, WhatsApp, Instagram, TikTok and basically described it to him as sort of remote online work.

15:39Shibani Mahtani:I can do this. Yeah, no problem. YouTube, enjoying the music. Because when I had some earphones, I was enjoying the music. Schraib told me that he was given several days to acclimate. But right away, certain things felt a little off. After he'd signed the contract with the bosses, he was taken to a separate administrative building where Cambodian guards took his photograph and gave him an ID card to use for entering and leaving the main gates of Bavette Business Centre. But Schraib Kim said the Chinese bosses then took their ID card away. When we went back to the office, they removed the IDs from us.

16:19Now he couldn't freely leave the complex.

16:23Shibani Mahtani:We went outside, we made some tour around the park to see what is going on. There were a lot of buildings. And what I can say is like a small town, a small developed town. Bars, shops, there was a hospital, there were supermarkets, saloons. There's nothing that you need outside.

16:45So when did you start realising, wait a minute, this is tough.

16:51Shibani Mahtani:At first, I never knew the job that I was going to be doing. That's what I can say. Then after like a week, they added me phones without anything. They just used to give me phones. Now I had like 40 phones. They gave him dozens of SIM cards, and all of them were for US numbers. After like a week, I started seeing things. If they were just doing remote work, why were they in possession of all this stuff? Like, why did they have hundreds of computers, thousands of SIM cards? What was all of it for? You're listening to The Sunday Story. We'll be right back.

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18:17Learn more at FisherInvestments.com. Investing in securities involves the risk of loss. By the end of that first week, it all started to click. Schwebe realized that he'd been brought to Cambodia to work as a scammer. And Schwebe, like many of the other Africans there, would be working at the lowest level of the operation.

18:37Shibani Mahtani:We are specialized in three categories. There were the developers, there were the receptionists, and there were the killers. First, there were the developers. They were IT technicians, and they buy stolen data off the internet. They get access to troves of phone numbers, Instagram accounts, and other data. Then there were the receptionists like Schweib. So were you a receptionist? Yes, I was a receptionist. So what does a receptionist do? Schweib explained to me that as a receptionist, he was the first person that a client would be in contact with. That's what the victims were called, by the way, clients.

19:17His job was to be that first human touch via text message, to introduce clients to basically a profitable scheme. He would lure them bit by bit with real cash rewards.

19:31Shibani Mahtani:They gave me a script. Can you give me an example of what the script will say? The first message, like, hello, how are you doing? Like a spamming message. And then maybe out of 10 numbers, one person would reply. Who is this one? Now that's when I get back to the script. I'm Sarah. As I mentioned earlier. I just copy all of it, then I paste it, then I send. This is a remote job opportunity. Your main task will be to help improve how products are seen and ranked on big shopping platforms. Copy, paste, copy, paste, following the script. Yeah. The best part? You don't need any technical skills or prior experience.

20:12So Shwai was in charge of hooking clients into what's called a task scam. and others who I interviewed in Cambodia described how this worked to me as well. As a client, you're convinced that you've signed up for a remote marketing job and that you just have to like a few YouTube pages, Amazon products. But to get sort of further in and to be given more things to do, you have to deposit money into an account. So you deposit money, you get paid out. You deposit more, they give you more work, you get paid out more and earn commission that way. And this commission structure was sort of deliberately complex.