Nearly 600 foreign and Cambodians were arrested from an alleged online gambling compound in Poipet city, near Cambodia’s border with Thailand.
The police raided the 30-story building in O’Chrov commune on October 4, arresting 591 suspects, the CC Times reported.
The suspects included 518 Indonesian nationals, 51 Cambodians and 22 Thais, and 106 of them were women.
On October 8, Cambodian authorities deported 197 Thai nationals for offenses related to online scams and other crimes, the newspaper reported. A further 10 Thai nationals were deported on September 25 from nearby Pailin province.
In Sihanoukville, military police raided three locations and detained 47 suspects on October 4 and 5, the CC Times said.
The three locations were the Yiek Liang Hotel in Bei commune, the Sok San Hotel in Buon commune and another building in the same commune’s village 5. Forty-seven suspects were arrested — 31 Chinese and 16 Vietnamese nationals — alongside dozens of computers and mobile phones seized.
The recent police actions followed 85 raids in August that led to 1,255 arrests of 13 nationalities in relation to suspected scam activity, according to a national police report.
Police official dies after arrest
Oum Sophal, deputy chief of Banteay Meanchey Police in charge of land borders, was arrested on September 21 for allegedly providing two buildings in Poipet city for online scam operations, the CC Times said.
The first location was a five-story building with 172 rooms, while the other was a two-story building with 59 rooms. More than 100 workers from Cambodia, Thailand, Bangladesh, Philippines, China, India and Malaysia were found at the premises.
However, authorities said he died four days after his arrest on September 25 due to cancer.
Prison violence, others
The owner of the Park 8 scam complex in Prey Veng province, Ieng Soklim, was arrested. Another suspected operator, Deng Pibing, left the country in May this year and is subject to an Interpol red notice, Cambodian authorities said. Prime Minister Hun Manet visited the Long Bay compound where Deng Pibing allegedly operated ahead of the release of an Al Jazeera report.
In other crime incidents, Cambodian police seized almost 1 ton of drugs in Sihanoukville, seized 10 rifles and 39 handguns, and arrested seven Chinese nationals. And the head of Pailin Provincial Prison and three other officials were suspended following the release of a video showing the torture of an inmate, according to CC Times.