"Slavery, human trafficking and torture in Cambodia’s Scamming Compounds: “I was someone else’s property”," 26 June 2025

The Cambodian government is deliberately ignoring a litany of 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, Amnesty International said in a new report published today.

Survivors interviewed for the report, “I Was Someone Else’s Property”, 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…

“Amnesty’s research reveals the horrifying magnitude of a crisis 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.”…

In the most comprehensive documentation yet of the issue, Amnesty’s 240-page report identified at least 53 scamming compounds in Cambodia and interviewed 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.

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 points towards state complicity in the human rights abuses taking place.

… 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”.

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”…