South Korea seeks to arrest dozens of online scam suspects repatriated from Cambodia

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) – Authorities are seeking to formally arrest most of the 64 South Koreans repatriated from Cambodia for allegedly working for online scam organizations in Cambodia, police said Monday.

The 64 South Koreans were detained in Cambodia over the past several months and were flown to Korea on a charter flight Saturday. Upon arrival in South Korea, they were detained while police investigated whether they voluntarily joined scam organizations in Cambodia or were forced to work there.

Online scams, many based in Southeast nations, have risen sharply since the COVID-19 pandemic and produced two sets of victims: the tens of thousands of people who have been forced to work as scammers under the threat of violence, and the targets of their fraud. Monitoring groups say online scams earn international criminal gangs billions of dollars annually.

State prosecutors have asked local courts to issue arrest warrants for 58 of the 64 returnees at the request of police, the Korean National Police Agency said in a statement. Police said the people they are seeking to place under arrest are accused of engaging in online fraud activities like romantic scams, bogus investment pitches or voice phishing, apparently targeting fellow South Koreans at home. The courts are expected to determine whether to approve their arrests in coming days.

The police agency said that five people have been set free, but it refused to disclose the reasons for their releases, saying investigations are still under way.

South Korean police said that four of the 64 returnees told investigators that they were beaten while being held in scam centers in Cambodia against their will.

South Korea faces public calls to take stronger action to protect its nationals from being forced into overseas online scam centers, after one of its nationals was found dead in Cambodia in August. He was reportedly lured by a friend to travel to Cambodia to provide his bank account to be used by a scam organization. Authorities in Cambodia said the 22-year-old university student was tortured.

Estimates from the U.N. and other international agencies say that at least 100,000 people have been trafficked to scam centers in Cambodia, with a similar number in Myanmar and tens of thousands more in other countries.

Officials in Seoul estimate that some 1,000 South Koreans are in scam centers in Cambodia, and last week, South Korean authorities imposed a travel ban on parts of Cambodia and sent a government delegation to Cambodia to discuss joint steps.

Online scam centers were previously concentrated in Southeast Asian countries including Cambodia and Myanmar, with most of the trafficked and other workers coming from Asia. But an Interpol report in June said the past three years have seen victims trafficked to Southeast Asia from distant regions including South America, Western Europe and Eastern Africa and that new centers have been reported in the Middle East, West Africa and Central America.