CNE has just received the following disturbing message from a foreigner who claims to be being held with others against their will and tortured at an online fraud site on the outskirts of Phnom Penh and pleading for help.
None of this can be verified, but fits with several other stories reported here and other media outlets both local and international.
I want to make a report, but I want you to hide my identity. If my identity is released, I am going to be hit by electronic shock batons.
We are locked in here. We came to this company after being lured by an online job advertisement promising of better salary and a good welfare about a month ago.
But after coming here, our passports were confiscated. We were forced to create profiles using other people’s information and use that to lure many people to place bets of a huge amount of money then all the money is robbed and the account is frozen.
We are asked to get contacts in Indonesia, Philippines and other countries and lure them to invest into this company’s platform.
Why must I fake my identity to tell someone to invest in a genuine platform? I don’t want to scam and commit fraud, even if I have problems. This is not what I was told I am coming to do here.
When you claim you want to leave, you are hit by electronic shock batons and then put into handcuffs. Guards put you in a dark dirty detention room where there is nothing and you are not given food or water for days in a hot room.
I wanted to leave because I didn’t want to do anything illegal and I have seen 3 people fall down and collapse then they are driven out of the building in body bags we don’t know what happened- only that they fell and passed out. Cambodian girls are being used as sex workers by the Chinese in the building.
You can’t take a picture in the building and anyone whose is found taking a picture is handcuffed and brought to this detention place like a jail cell.
One person was electrocuted by the security who were forcing him to stay back not to leave without paying back 2000usd. (*The writer claims this person died).
I want to leave this place I don’t know the area- but it is in Phnom Penh, somewhere near the airport. (The writer later sent a pin location showing an are along road 3, south of Choam Chao).
No one can come inside or enter that gate to the building and no car or anyone from outside can meet anyone inside
If am known to have shared this I will be tortured, but I want to leave this place- there are more than 500 people held in this building. We want to leave, but our passports have been held.
We’re detained- me and two other foreigners (*nationalities were given, but redacted for their own safety) and put in cell in handcuffs because of insisting we want to leave. I was afraid this may happen and managed to hide my phone on my body. The handcuffs were taken off when we were put in the cell together- it is dark and smells like toilets.
Please help. Kindly do something to help. Please don’t share my identity- don’t put me in more danger.
*CNE does not report this as facts as the claims made cannot be verified. However, with such as desperate plea for help, we believe it should be shared publicly to alert the authorities and others who answer ‘online recruitment’ advertisements.
Let me tell you something. I work at this company, and life here is good. 4 meals a day, 1200 dollars per month. What we do is legal. I also know who wrote you this information. Turkish guy who was punished after tricking one guy to smuggle in drugs for him. We are allowed to leave but we have signed a contract for 8 months, breaking the contract has consequences, as any contract anywhere in the world has. There are no sex workers here against their will. CNE can contact me for more information.