00:00This is what a scam factory looks like.
00:03Reuters visited an abandoned fraud compound in the Cambodian border town of Osmak on Monday.
00:09In the building were rooms designed to look like police officers from countries including Singapore and Brazil.
00:15Nearby were scripts guiding fraudsters on how to imitate police and commit love scams.
00:21Papers and documents were strewn across desks and floors, the aftermath of a hurried evacuation.
00:28The visit to the site, known as Royal Hill, was facilitated by the Thai military,
00:33which seized it during the recent border conflict with Cambodia.
00:37Tirana Nandakwang is the Director General of the Royal Thai Army's Intelligence Unit.
00:42He said Thai forces were moving on the building as they thought it was used to stage drone attacks during the conflict
00:48and were not aware that it was a scam compound.
00:51The Cambodian government said in a statement Wednesday that the facility was a hotel that Thailand had occupied by force.
00:58Chinese language documents found at the site showed that the complex's unidentified management
01:04had leased out the space to different scamming groups.
01:07Reuters could not establish what entity had ultimate control of the compound.
01:11Such facilities are often run by Chinese criminal gangs.
01:15They are staffed partly by trafficking victims, living in brutal conditions, and have proliferated across Southeast Asia.
01:22Documents at OSMAC showed the efforts bosses made to ensure security,
01:26with one demanding military-style anti-riot drills and another ordering security guards to stop people loitering nearby.
01:34A former Madagascan worker at a compound next to Royal Hill told Reuters that such conditions were typical.
01:40He said he was allowed by captors, who he did not identify, to leave the compound when fighting started.
01:45There was some kind of war between Thailand and Cambodia and that's how we can live.
01:55There was a bomb and a war. Yeah. So everyone ran.
02:01It was around two days, three days and after three days they gave our passport and you can go now, you can go wherever you want.
02:14Southeast Asia has emerged in recent years as an epicentre of the global cyber fraud industry.
02:20Many countries in the region have been pressured to crack down by foreign governments, including the US,
02:25which estimates that Americans lost $10 billion to Southeast Asian scam centres in 2024.
02:31Now, the Thai strikes and pressure from the Cambodian government have led to an exodus of more than 100,000 people from the compounds in Cambodia.
02:39Many have lined up outside embassies in the capital, Phnom Penh, seeking help to return home in what Amnesty International has called a humanitarian crisis.
02:49Thank you very much.
02:52Thank you very much.
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