Thousands of foreign workers trafficked into south-east Asia's sprawling cyber-fraud industry escaped during a wave of regional crackdowns earlier this year, but many now find themselves stranded in Cambodia, unable to return home, according to aid workers and survivors.
Police and troops across Thailand, Cambodia and Myanmar carried out mass raids this year to dismantle scam centres that have defrauded millions of people worldwide and generated billions of dollars for organised crime networks. For a brief period, the operations appeared to signal a turning point for one of the world's fastest-growing criminal industries.
But months later, thousands of survivors from Africa, Latin America and Asia remain in Cambodia without passports, money or a clear path home, according to anti-trafficking organisations working in the country.
Many have gathered in the capital, Phnom Penh, sleeping rough and surviving hand to mouth. Thousands who sought help have instead been placed in immigration detention centres, which are now overflowing. One former scam compound, known as Mango 2, has reportedly been converted into a detention facility, housing some of the same people it was meant to rescue.
Visa overstay fines accrued during captivity have mounted into the thousands of dollars for many survivors, leaving those unable to pay unable to leave the country. Judah Tana, who has helped trafficking victims escape scam compounds through the NGO Global Advance Projects, described the situation as "an absolute mess". "No one can figure out how to get home," he said.
Among those affected is a 27-year-old Liberian man, referred to as Emmanuel, who travelled to Cambodia after being offered what he believed was a legitimate graphic design job. He says he was instead driven to a jungle compound, had his passport and phone confiscated, and was ordered to carry out online fraud targeting Americans and Europeans.
Emmanuel says he was threatened with a punishment cell known as the "dark room" when he refused to work, and later beaten, starved and shocked with electric batons after failing to meet targets set by supervisors. He says he witnessed people drown attempting to escape across a nearby river.
When police raids began, Emmanuel says compound managers fled, allowing roughly 400 workers to escape. But he had no shelter, no money and an expired visa. His family raised funds for a flight home, but he says he was prevented from leaving the country at the airport and told he owed an overstay fee of almost $4,000. "I am trapped again," he said.
Aid groups say a humanitarian crisis is building because those who escaped the compounds are frequently treated as offenders rather than victims. "They're not doing any screening at all," said Mechelle Moore, chief executive of the anti-trafficking NGO Global Alms Incorporated. "They're treating everyone coming out of a scamming operation as a criminal."
Amnesty International said in June that none of the 73 survivors it had interviewed had been formally recognised as victims of human trafficking, despite meeting the organisation's own assessment of the definition. Without that recognition, survivors cannot access emergency accommodation, legal assistance or repatriation support.
The lack of safe shelter has created further risks. Ling Li of the nonprofit EOS Collective said the organisation had recorded several cases of women reporting sexual abuse while sleeping outdoors.
Researchers say the dismantling of the compounds has proven short-lived, with criminal networks rebuilding and relocating quickly. "The compounds that were emptied in Myanmar have already filled up again," Moore said. "The bosses came back. Everything is active again." Her organisation says it has documented at least nine new scam compounds built in Myanmar over the past six months and continues to receive reports of new trafficking cases.
In Cambodia, researchers say scam operators have begun recruiting directly from the population of stranded survivors sleeping rough in Phnom Penh, avoiding recruitment fees and flights. "The bosses have realised there are all these people still there, sleeping on the streets," Moore said. "They are scooping them up and sending them straight into another compound."
Tana said the crisis has exposed a gap between foreign governments demanding rescues and their willingness to repatriate citizens once freed. "We had countries screaming, 'Rescue my people, rescue my people,'" he said. "Then they do it, they call the countries and say, 'Come and pick them up,' and the countries say, 'No.'"
A 34-year-old Ethiopian IT graduate, referred to as Matthew, said he received no support from his government after escaping a compound near the Vietnamese border. He had travelled to Cambodia believing he had secured a hardware and software maintenance job, only to have his passport and phone confiscated on arrival and be ordered to run online cryptocurrency investment scams targeting people in the Philippines.
Matthew said workers who missed targets were beaten, fined, publicly humiliated or given electric shocks. When Cambodian authorities began raiding compounds, he said his bosses hid African workers in a nearby house for two weeks before eventually returning their passports and releasing them. "The police raid was a miracle," he said.
But freedom brought new difficulties. With no money, no valid visa and nowhere to go, Matthew relied on donations from strangers to survive. Ethiopia has no embassy in Cambodia, leaving him to seek help through its embassy in South Korea, which he said did not respond to repeated requests for assistance. "Our governments say they are not responsible for us," he said. "Our embassies do not reply, and so we are stranded in Cambodia."
Kenya, Uganda and Ghana, whose citizens were also among those freed from scam compounds, likewise lack resident embassies in Cambodia, leaving survivors dependent on consular support from elsewhere in the region.
Cambodia's interior ministry has previously rejected criticism of its handling of the crisis, saying authorities have "rescued" hundreds of thousands of scam workers, including trafficking victims, and repatriated them "with the utmost care, in accordance with the law". The ministry did not respond to requests for comment.
Aid organisations say that without stronger victim identification, funded repatriation routes and government engagement, thousands of survivors risk being drawn back into the very criminal networks they escaped.
