Five private security companies identified where guards committed or facilitated abuses
Members of political elite, military and police linked to security companies at multiple scam compounds
Accountability lacking despite government crackdown
Cambodian private security companies connected to the country’s military, police and powerful business networks have helped sustain a scamming industry built on trafficking, forced labour, torture and slavery, Amnesty International said in a new report published today.
Official Business: Security companies and authorities at scamming compounds in Cambodia
identifies five private security companies that provided services at scamming compounds – and details their links to members of Cambodia’s military, police and business elites. Amnesty also identified multiple members of the military and police who worked as security guards, trained or supervised guards at more than 20 compounds.
“For years, survivors of these nightmarish compounds described encountering members of the Cambodian military or police inside. These accounts could not be independently verified – until now,” said Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General.
“This report demonstrates Cambodian corporate actors’ direct involvement in scamming compounds. Our findings also begin to expose the long-suspected links between Cambodia’s billion-dollar criminal scamming networks and politically connected figures who have remained largely beyond scrutiny.
“At the heart of these connections are security companies whose guards controlled compound exits, hunted down people who escaped and enforced compliance through fear and violence. Without them, this system of mass exploitation could not have functioned.”
Guards central to confinement and abuse
Building on its previous investigations that
exposed slavery, human trafficking, rape, forced labour and torture
inside Cambodia’s scamming compounds, and documented the
failures of the governmen
… [more]
