Park Minho, a 22-year-old college student from Liquan County, Gyeongsangbuk-do, South Korea, was tricked into working in Cambodia because of his high salary, and was unfortunately abused to death. Cambodian police recently arrested three Chinese suspects. The case shocked Korean society and revealed the shady scene of more Koreans disappearing, being abused and killed in Cambodia. There are even rumors that some victims have their organs harvested and sold after their deaths, and the plot is outrageous.
The Cambodian fraud center suspect, demonstrated, has nothing to do with the news incident.
According to South Korean media reports, the statistics of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs showed that crimes against South Koreans in Cambodia rose sharply.In 2021, there were only four reports of abductions, rising to 220 last year, and 330 this year as of August.There are at least 400 criminal group bases in Cambodia, engaged in illegal activities such as love fraud, stock fraud, overseas futures fraud and telecom fraud pretending to be public officials.
Several victims who have been imprisoned or worked in fraud parks have revealed that if they fail to complete the fraud performance, they will suffer cruel punishment, including nail cutting, finger cutting, beating, etc. Almost every day, victims are slaughtered and killed. Some people are even trafficked with organs for “unperforming” because they “usually start from the eye because the cornea is the most valuable”.
Relatively, the victims of imprisonment are slightly better in Phnom Penh and Sihanouk, while the most dangerous are in border areas such as Bobe, Bahama, etc. People who perform poorly or are indebted are often transferred to border parks and live a life like "human purification".
The victims are not only from South Korea, but also from Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia and China. They either die due to deteriorating health due to long-term beatings, or they are subjected to violence due to substandard work. Some people even had their fingers cut off because the bank accounts they sold were frozen.
Another victim pointed out that there was even a Telegram group in the scam park that specialized in spreading torture and photographs of bodies, and managers used this to showcase and intimidate others. While there were claims that the incinerator was only used to incinerate garbage, some victims confirmed that "many of the killed were thrown directly into the incinerator."
The South Korean government has now asked Cambodia to strengthen cooperation in investigations and called on the public to be vigilant against overseas "high salary traps" and avoid falling into the control of transnational criminal groups. However, public opinion in South Korea generally criticized the government's slow response, pointing out that similar cases had occurred as early as two years ago, but only called on tourists to be vigilant. It was not until last month that a "avoid unnecessary travel" warning was issued. It was not until after the deaths of South Korean citizens were exposed that the implementation of a special travel alert was announced.