As Cambodia struggles to cope with human trafficking, headline news of the weekend escape of Vietnamese nationals from a casino along the Cambodia-Vietnamese border only serves to show the gravity of the situation and cast a blinding blight on the Kingdom.
A video, which went viral on social media, showed about 50 foreign casino workers swimming across the river that marks the border between Cambodia and Vietnam reportedly to flee an Immigration crackdown.
It has however come to light that the workers were escaping Golden Phoenix Entertainment Casino in Chrey Thom commune, Koh Thom district, Kandal province where they claimed to have been tricked into working and which they described as “hell”.
Their “escape” from the Chinese-managed casino where muscular guards wielded batons to crack heads was well planned and had the makings of a movie.
The Vietnamese had planned the escape over two nights, making their move in the morning when the casino’s gates are open and there are only seven or eight managers on duty.
At about 10am, the group ran toward the doors. Strong young men were in front to attack the guards and create an opening for the women to escape. Another group of young men was at the back, throwing Molotov cocktails at the guards.
The guards were taken by surprise at first, but it took just a minute for the “muscular” men to show up with iron rods and chase after the Vietnamese, who were “running for our lives”, according to a female escapee who survived the ordeal.
One of them was caught while the rest jumped into the river. Some of them do not know how to swim but jumped in anyway, and were helped by the others to reach the other side.
They managed to reach the Long Binh border guard station unscathed and were then transferred to the communal house where they received care and questioned by the police.
Vietnam’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has asked Cambodian authorities to help investigate the case.
After a meeting on Friday, Minister of Interior Sar Kheng told the press that those who escaped were illegally employed by the casino and had fled after the workers did not get what they promised in salaries.
“They were promised high salaries but they didn’t get what they wanted… They crossed the border because they couldn’t reach an agreement (with their employer).”
According to the police, while most of the workers managed to swim into the Vietnamese territories, one of them drowned while 11 were caught.
General Keo Vannthan, Immigration Department spokesman, said he led a team to the casino and detained the manager for questioning.
The casino manager, a Chinese national, Gen Vannthan said, admitted to forcing the workers to work against their will but claimed that the escapees owed the company money. The manager was arrested.
“We also questioned the 11 Vietnamese and they said the reason they ran away was that they had a dispute with the casino manager over non-compliance with their contracts.
“The company promised to pay the workers $800, but the company manager paid the workers only $400 or $500 a month,” Gen Vannthan said adding that the Vietnamese are now being held pending deportation as “none of them have a passport”.
Kandal Governor Kong Sophoan said yesterday that National Police are probing the extent of the “crime” before deciding the next step.
“We encouraged companies to abide by Cambodian labour laws and abide by proper business licenses and to ensure that their employees perform their duties properly, free from drug use and coercion or detention of people,” he said.
Sophoan urged Vietnamese and Cambodian police to work together to tackle the issue to create a safe working environment for investors.
Separately, VnExpress reported that Major Le Ngoc Tuan, an officer stationed at the Long Binh border gate, said Vietnamese authorities have taken in the 35 men and five women who were among 42 people who escaped from the casino in Kandal and swam across the Binh Di River.
Dinh Van Noi, director of the police department of southern Vietnam’s An Giang province, was quoted by VnExpress on Saturday that an investigation was ongoing to bust potential human trafficking rings involved in the case. An Giang police cooperated with counterparts of Cambodia’s Kandal province to search for all illegal workers being held at local casinos so they could return to Vietnam.
One of the escapees, a woman known as Doan Thi Ngoc Diep, told VNExpress that the casino from which she and her co-workers just escaped from was hellish.
“None of us could sleep last night, it was too traumatizing,” Diep, 20, was quoted by VnExpress.
She said she and her husband looked for job advertisements on Facebook and found one that promised VND25 million ($1,070) a month.
“The brokers said it was a computer job in air-conditioned rooms.”
The couple was attracted by the money, which was four times what their previous job paid, and packed their bags and took a bus as the brokers instructed.
Diep said they traveled for three days and switched buses five times before they reached Cambodia.
Their days of being threatened and exploited started then.
Human trafficking in the form of job scams is not new to the Kingdom, as numerous cases of foreigners tricked into working in illegal syndicates have been reported in the past months. Khmer Times, which has been extensively investigating such cases and reporting on rescue operations, mostly in Kandal and Sihanoukville, found that the modus operandi involves scammers offering victims – Chinese, Malaysian, Indonesian, Thai, and most recently Vietnamese – high salaries and other lucrative job benefits to hook them.
In a separate development, Indonesia is set to fly out some 202 of its nationals who had been rescued from various online gambling and scamming centres in several parts of Cambodia in the past few months.
Immigration police officers told Khmer Times on conditions of anonymity that Indonesia will fly in a chartered aircraft (yesterday) and ferry the 202 to Jakarta.