Ministry of Labour and Vocational Training secretary of state Heng Sour warned Cambodians living or working overseas in countries like South Korea, Thailand and Japan to be wary of scammers operating fraudulent land sale schemes, among others.
Sour said in a March 12 social media post that he became aware that recently there were some individuals attempting to cheat Cambodian immigrants or migrant workers abroad. He said they often present themselves as the representative of association or organisation or to be affiliated with some well-known person.
Sour related that those groups will tell people that they are preparing to divide land into plots for sale, but when people ask them for documents or legal information, they would just claim that they are still preparing them, though they have none.
The scammers, he said, would tell their victims that the purchase of the land has to be a joint venture or that they must do it in secret because it is illegal somehow. People who give them money are sure to lose it and the scammers often count on the fact that they had enlisted the victims in an illegal scheme to ensure that they do not tell the authorities of that country for fear that they will get in trouble for it.
Other versions of the scam use the lure of a better job or jobs for family members back home or the opening of a new business venture or business expansion they want the person to invest in. Sometimes the scammers forge very realistic looking documents like government permits or bank statements.
These scams have cost people tens of thousands of dollars of their savings, according to Sour, and in some cases the criminals have managed to collect millions of dollars from numerous victims before escaping.
“They get to know you and then they pretend to have pity on you. And they persuade you to invest with their agents and require you to deposit money and so forth … If you agree to join them, you will suffer,” Sour said.
Another form of scam that is common are illegal lenders or loan sharks who lend money at high-interest rates. They also offer to “act as a bank” for the immigrant and hold onto their money for them safely. They encourage people to borrow more than they can afford and to get their friends to do the same, and later on threaten the victims with legal action if they do not continue to pay the interest or even threaten them with violence.
It is not just overseas Cambodians who need to be cautious, however. The police in Por Sen Chey district of Phnom Penh on March 8 detained a man for allegedly deceiving over 100 people with promises of jobs in South Korea, claiming that they needed to pay a fee or deposit first.
Mann Seng Hak, president of the Free Trade Union of Workers of Cambodia, said the warnings are good because some Cambodians, like people everywhere, often believe that they would never fall for such scams. He said scammers can be extremely persuasive even to those who are more worldly or educated.
“These scams are very dangerous. Even recently, we have seen scams such as people being sold apartments that don’t exist. They were deceived and it could happen to anyone. So I call on all people, especially those living overseas, to avoid getting cheated. If something sounds too good to be true, it usually is,” he said.
