Ten South Koreans have been arrested in Cambodia for their alleged involvement in cyberscam operations, while two others were rescued, South Korea’s Foreign Minister Cho Hyun said on Monday, October 20.
The arrests came just days after Cambodia repatriated 64 South Koreans accused of participating in large-scale online fraud schemes known as “pig butchering,” where scammers build trust with victims before stealing their money.
Cho said the ten suspects were detained last Thursday and would be repatriated this week. He added that efforts were ongoing to locate about 80 South Korean nationals still unaccounted for in Cambodia. According to Seoul’s foreign ministry, around 550 South Koreans have been reported missing or held against their will since last year after traveling to Cambodia.
Authorities estimate that roughly 1,000 South Koreans are among some 200,000 people working in the country’s scam networks, many of them forced into the operations under threats of violence. Over the weekend, the 64 deported individuals were immediately detained upon arrival in South Korea and escorted off their flight in handcuffs.
The National Police Agency said it was seeking arrest warrants for 59 of those repatriated, while Park Sung-joo, head of the National Office of Investigation, confirmed that the suspects were linked to crimes including voice phishing, romance scams, and “no-show” fraud schemes. National Security Adviser Wi Sung-lac said the deportees included both “voluntary and involuntary participants.”
The crackdown follows outrage over the death of a South Korean college student in Cambodia earlier this year, allegedly murdered by members of a scam ring. South Korean officials have since met with Cambodia’s prime minister and local police to address the rise of fake job offers and criminal cyberfraud centres in the region.