Chinese Man From Hunan Escapes Sihanoukville Scam Compound, Tells Thai Rangers He Was Drugged, Bound and Nearly Sold
Thai rangers detained a 31-year-old Chinese man from Hunan, identified as Ta Yining, in Sa Kaeo province on October 26. He told Thai officers he had been held at a casino in Sihanoukville, Cambodia, and forced into telephone scams for more than a year and a half, and that his Chinese employer recently drugged and bound him and planned to sell him to another gang before he crossed into Thailand, the Thai military said.
A patrol from Ranger Company 1202 of the Burapha Force's 2nd task force, led by Captain Theerayut Danthong, found the man by Sri Phen Road in Ban Dong Ngu village, Pa Rai subdistrict, Aranyaprathet district. He had no passport and no phone and spoke to officers through an interpreter.
According to his account to Thai authorities, he first went to Myanmar, was persuaded by a friend to move to Cambodia, and was forced to run phone scams inside a Sihanoukville casino for over 18 months. As Cambodian crackdowns intensified, his Chinese employer, saying he had missed performance targets, gave him sleeping pills, tied him up and prepared to sell him to another group. A Cambodian man then threatened him with a knife and forced him to cut through a wire fence into Thailand, after which he was put on a pickup truck bound for Bangkok and Chiang Mai; he escaped during a fuel stop in Aranyaprathet while intending to return to Cambodia.
Thai authorities warned that Southeast Asian countries are jointly cracking down on cross-border scam compounds and urged Chinese citizens not to trust "high-salary" overseas job offers. The details rest mainly on the man's own account to Thai officers and remain under verification.
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：柬埔寨西哈努克市及西哈努克省海岸全景（资料图）。/ Panoramic view of Sihanoukville, Cambodia (file photo). 图片来源：Dmitry Makeev，Wikimedia Commons，CC BY-SA 4.0。
