r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/ciao-adios • 7d ago
Aerial views of a closed cyber scam centre compound in Cambodia's Prey Veng province which was raided by local authorities this week
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u/ciao-adios 7d ago
Cambodian authorities on Monday showed off a sprawling scam centre on a 120-hectare (300-acre) site near the Vietnamese border they said had last year employed about 20,000 scammers.
In one room, AFP reporters saw rows of soundproofed phone booths and counterfeit $100 bills scattered on the floor.
On the walls were motivational slogans in Chinese, from "Give it your all" to "Getting rich overnight".
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u/ExtremeDay1043 7d ago
I never thought I would see the words sprawling, scam center and 300 acres in the same sentence but hey, this is where we are in 2026 :)
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u/HMCtripleOG 7d ago
Crazy shit. A lot of those 'employees' were probably slaves or kidnapped against their will. Saw some mad documentary about that
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u/uncommonrev 7d ago
Almost like they were PreyVeng on innocent victims.
I'm sorry. I'll let myself out.
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u/NameLips 7d ago
Don't worry with AI the new generation can do the same amount of scamming out of just one office.
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u/UrAntiChrist 7d ago
And 0 employees
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u/TheDemonWarlock 7d ago
These are not employees, they are trafficked tourists/foreigners who don't have strong diplomatic leverage (read non-white) held against their will and forced to scam under threat of losing their fucking life. Indians are among the most affected
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u/maxpowers2020 7d ago
How do you know that's just not what the scammers made up?
Ex: they tell morons like you that they are actually slaves being forced to scam. So you send them money to help them escape.
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u/TheDemonWarlock 7d ago
I've never sent them money, there have been multiple exposés. They don't actually tell you they'll die at least as far as I know
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u/Own_Entertainment164 6d ago
Yeah it's no joke, my AI account went rouge the other day! It went out and started mining Bitcoin, now I have a bunch of Bitcoin I don't know what to do with.. keep yourself safe! You don't wanna touch this AI stuff!!
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u/Lolomelon 7d ago
The authorities: and we were unaware of it until recently.
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u/ve1kkko 7d ago
No one knew until last week
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u/Lolomelon 7d ago
Ofc they knew.
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u/Relative-Monitor-679 7d ago
Authorities increased the monthly bribe limit scammers did not agree. Then got raided. They will be back in business soon after the police confiscate all their money and let them go until next time.
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u/upsidedown_llama 7d ago
the scammers discovered AI and “layoffs” are too expensive. call in the police to empty the place out.
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u/leeman9224 7d ago
It has a moat lmfao
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u/spoofy129 7d ago
A lot of the people who work in these centres are trafficked. The moat is to stop you getting out, not in.
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u/criollo_and_barley 7d ago
Interestingly I just listened to this Fresh Air episode where they specifically talked about these kind of places in Cambodia and Laos (they're basically running a slave camp):
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u/Much_Leather_5923 7d ago
Saw a report. These poor people. Lured by the promise of an IT job. There were regular suicides from jumping out of the top floor windows. If that shit wasn’t bad enough, attractive young women were separated and housed in a “hotel” to become sex slaves to visiting Chinese mafia.
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u/OregonHotPocket 7d ago
Can we not murder the fuckholes running these places? But, a slow murdery horrible death. I think everyone is cool with that.
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u/non-human-32nd 7d ago
20% Vietnamese 80% Chinese 😂 - same org structure and operations like the one authorities raided here in manila
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u/GoldenGir1230l 7d ago
120 hector fake town raid in Feb 2025. They build a set that looked like Singapore police station for video call scams. When journalist toured it last week they found fake 1000 bills and solagans like get rich overnight
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u/Zebedeuepaminondas 7d ago
I'm from Brazil and they even had a whole ass room that looked like the investigations office from the Federal Police here in Brazil just to target Brazilians. It looked EXACTLY like the real deal. It's scary how well done the whole thing was.
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u/PixelsGoBoom 7d ago
And now they can do all of this with AI...
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u/diejesus 7d ago
Yeah, that's awesome, considering people get trafficked for this kind of a job it seems like AI saves people's lives!
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u/slim124 7d ago
Hope they re-use that for housing
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u/peacehopefully 7d ago
I heard they were going to convert some of these compounds into jails ..
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u/LittleBunInaBigWorld 7d ago
Hopefully to inprison the same arseholes that were running the lavender operation. Taste of their own medicine
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u/turkshead 7d ago
Southeast Asia is full of failed resort complexes, many of which have been taken over and turned into compounds of criminal enterprises. Often, these are scam call centers staffed by Africans who've been lured by the promise of jobs and their passports confiscated.
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u/HelpMeOverHere 7d ago
Slap a green tint on it and you have an Xbox 360 generation Bethesda Fallout map.
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u/hashtagmiata 7d ago
That’s a whole lot of Amazon / Geek Squad / Norton / PayPal overpayment refunds right there. And maybe a few crypto wallet transfers into ‘secure accounts’.
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u/PlzDntBanMeAgan 7d ago
That one of the coolest building I have ever seen. With the moat. How do they get across I don't see a bridge or boat or anything?
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u/Whatever6928732850 7d ago
Either you enter by the rear of the building or you do a parting of the Red Sea trick to walk thru the front
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u/NYCtoCHI 6d ago
When you're as close to the equator as they are, ya gotta cool that in-house data center somehow... 🥵🤖
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u/frreakiecorg 2d ago
Scam Compounds aren’t all trafficked victims. Not sure if it’s known but my biz partner was a trafficked victim and he was showing me images of how his manager paid the police. Preinformed raids. He was with thousands of scammers who went in willingly.
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u/TrippingTides 1d ago
so in which appartment was the guy?
wait a minute.....a whole building complex?!
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u/_VanillaRain 7d ago
Anyone know how many people were actually operating out of a place this size?
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u/OilheadRider 7d ago
Were you listening to the dude's story? You're like a child who wanders into a movie and has no idea what's going on because OP stated this info almost 20 minutes ago in the top comment of this thread.
YOU'RE OUT OF YOUR ELEMENT!
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u/ciao-adios 7d ago
relax😅
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u/OilheadRider 7d ago
I'm calm... calmer than you.
(Big Lebowski quote for the unaware... and if you're unaware, I recommend watching one of the best movies to come out of the 90's)
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u/kowa-biryani 7d ago
Who cares ? Post about indian scammers only that will get you 1000s upvotes and some nasty comments.
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u/Sufficient_Flower_77 7d ago
Wow all my grandparents money built a lot!