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Authorities are trying to formally arrest most of the 64 South Koreans deported from Cambodia on charges of working for online scam organizations in Cambodia, police said on Monday.
64 South Koreans detained in Cambodia over the past several months were flown to Korea on a charter flight on Saturday. Upon arriving in South Korea, they were detained while police investigated whether they had voluntarily joined scam organizations in Cambodia or were forced to work there.
Online scams, many of which are based in south-eastern countries, have grown exponentially since the COVID-19 pandemic and have generated two groups of victims: tens of thousands of people who have been forced to work as scammers under threat of violence, and the targets of their fraud. Watchdog groups say international criminal gangs earn billions of dollars annually from online scams.
At the request of the Korean National Police, state prosecutors have asked local courts to issue arrest warrants for 58 of the 64 returnees. Police the agency said in a statement. Police said the people they want to arrest are accused of engaging in online fraudulent activities such as romantic scams, fake investment pitches or voice phishing, apparently targeting fellow South Koreans at home. It is expected that in the coming days the courts will decide whether to approve his arrest or not.
The police agency said the five people had been released, but it declined to disclose the reasons for their release, saying the investigation was still ongoing.
South Korean police said four of the 64 returned told investigators they were beaten while being held against their will in detention centers in Cambodia.
South Korea is facing public calls to take stronger action to protect its citizens from being forcibly sent to overseas online scam centers, after one of its citizens was found dead in Cambodia in August. He was reportedly lured by a friend to travel to Cambodia so that he could provide his bank account for use by a scam organization. Authorities in Cambodia said the 22-year-old university student was tortured.
The United Nations and other international agencies estimate that at least 100,000 people have been trafficked into Cambodia’s scam centers, with a similar number myanmar And thousands in other countries.
officer inside soul It is estimated that about 1,000 South Koreans are in scam centers in Cambodia, and last week, South Korean authorities imposed a travel ban on parts of Cambodia and sent a government delegation to Cambodia to discuss joint steps.
Online scams were previously concentrated in Southeast Asian countries, including Cambodia and Myanmar, where most traffickers and other workers came from Asia. But an Interpol report in June said the past three years had seen trafficking of victims into Southeast Asia from remote areas including South America, Western Europe and East Africa, and new centers were reported in the Middle East, West Africa and the Middle East. Central America,