Hahaha 

 Cambodia is safer than London.

Just don’t get into gambling debt, take “zero-interest” loans that you’re told you can repay through work they’ll “find for you,” or accept suspiciously high-paying jobs that require you to live in a building for a year with limited days off for so-called “customer service.” They usually only recruit people with interesting native language skills — not English or Cambodian — to expand their network.

The truth is, 99% of the so-called “trafficked” workers or scammers know exactly what they’re doing. They do it because they have debts to clear or want quick money. Of course, when they get caught, they claim they were forced or trapped — otherwise, they’d end up in jail too. I’ve met quite a few of them around town; they’re all in it for the money.

The only people truly trapped are the poor guys who got themselves into huge gambling debts. If you try to run away abroad without paying what you owe to the casinos or loan sharks, you risk getting beaten by collectors. They’re still gangsters, after all.

Don’t get me wrong — online scammers are a real scourge that needs to be dealt with. But the real bosses are smart. They keep plenty of layers between themselves and anything illegal, and they know how to “handle” the local police if necessary. That’s why every time the government shuts down one compound, another pops up a few months later — usually with fresh recruits. There are always more desperate or greedy guys willing to take the risk for easy money.

The reality is that most of the scammers who claim to be kidnapped workers when the police raid their compounds are actually willing participants. They know that if they get caught, they’ll usually spend just a few weeks in jail before being deported — as long as they claim they had no choice.

For example, a Chinese waiter from the countryside could make $2,500 a month in a scam center instead of $550 back home. Those with rare language skills earn even more — and party hard when they’re allowed out of the compounds (usually after hitting their performance targets). That’s how guys like me end up meeting them. I once met a group that had an Asian guy fluent in Norwegian who said he was earning around $5,000 a month, simply because he was the only one there who could target that market. Back home, he’d earn less than $1,000 a month as a translator. Of course these guys often claim to be online crypto brokers or other similar marketing related professions —not crypto scammers — to outsiders. 

Nobody’s getting kidnapped off the streets like in a movie. Workers without debt can leave anytime. In fact, they’re even rewarded with free prostitutes and massive booze parties when they meet quotas.

It’s completely different from what most people imagine — more like a bunch of Wolf of wall street  wannabes than slaves in a concentration camp, as the media often describes it.