{"id":24357,"date":"2021-11-09T11:11:24","date_gmt":"2021-11-09T14:11:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=24357"},"modified":"2026-04-23T14:01:20","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T17:01:20","slug":"cambodians-forced-to-work-at-illegal-casino-in-sihanoukville","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/cambodians-forced-to-work-at-illegal-casino-in-sihanoukville","title":{"rendered":"Cambodians forced to work at illegal casino in Sihanoukville"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Three Cambodian citizens were held against their will by a human trafficker and forced to work at an illegal casino in Sihanoukville.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>Cambodia.- Cambodia continues tackle human trafficking connected to the illegal gambling sector. Two women and one man have been released after being<strong> forced to work in an illegal casino\u00a0<\/strong>in Sihanoukville for at least two months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to a report by Radio Free Asia,\u00a0<strong>the three people were tempted by a false promise of a well-paid job<\/strong> by a trafficker who said he would pay them $1,000 to go to Sihanoukville.\u00a0However, after they arrived they found their salary would be much lower, and when they tried to quit, the trafficker prohibited them from leaving and imposed a one-year contract on them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The trafficker threatened that if the three captives refused to sign and fulfill their contractual obligations, they would be &#8220;sold&#8221; to other companies.\u00a0According to Radio Free Asia, between March and October, at least 437 people became victims of human trafficking and were forced to work in the illegal online gambling industry.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In September, China and Cambodia renewed their\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/china-and-cambodia-renew-agreement-on-cross-border-crime\">existing cooperation agreement on cross border gambling<\/a>.\u00a0<strong>China\u2019s minister of public security <\/strong>and <strong>Cambodia\u2019s interior<\/strong> <strong>minister\u00a0<\/strong>agreed to continue tackling cross-border crimes,<strong>\u00a0including illegal online gambling<\/strong>. When the first agreement was signed, in March 2019, Cambodia banned online gambling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The China-Cambodia Law Enforcement Cooperation Office said: \u201cChinese police and Cambodian police are looking for a way to resolve the problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt is every police officer\u2019s responsibility to crack down on crimes of this nature which are particularly horrific. Our government has a very strict policy to crack down on such crimes. It is a key task for our police to stop this from occurring and we are cooperating with police internationally.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Cambodia sets requirements for new and existing casinos<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Hun Sen, Cambodia\u2019s Prime Minister<\/strong>, has set new minimum capital requirements for&nbsp;<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/cambodia-sets-requirements-for-new-and-existing-casinos\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">future and existing casinos<\/a>. According to local media reports,&nbsp;<strong>Decree No. 166 establishes a minimum capital requirement&nbsp;<\/strong>of KHR800bn (US$200m) for integrated commercial gambling centres and KHR400bn for other gambling venues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The government has been studying how to better regulate the industry and&nbsp;<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/china-and-cambodia-renew-agreement-on-cross-border-crime\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">ban online gambling business<\/a>, which was made illegal in 2020. Casinos that cannot meet the new capital requirements will not obtain a new business licence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Three Cambodian citizens were held against their will by a human trafficker and forced to work at an illegal casino in Sihanoukville.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":17326,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"Cambodia is intensifying its efforts against human trafficking linked to illegal gambling, particularly in Sihanoukville, with recent rescues of forced laborers. Concurrently, the government, led by Prime Minister Hun Sen, has introduced new minimum capital requirements (KHR800bn for integrated resorts, KHR400bn for other venues) for both existing and prospective casinos, aiming to enhance industry regulation and eliminate unlicensed online gambling operations. This dual approach addresses both criminal exploitation and structural market integrity.","focusai_entities":"Radio Free Asia, China's minister of public security, Cambodia's interior minister, China-Cambodia Law Enforcement Cooperation Office, Hun Sen","focusai_location":"Cambodia, Sihanoukville, China","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (1.0), compliance_legal (0.95), operator_casino (0.9), payments_fraud_aml (0.7), investor_analyst (0.9), supplier_vendor (0.7), journalist_researcher (1.0)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"Capital Requirement Impact","query":"What is the projected timeline for existing Cambodian casino operators to meet the new KHR800bn\/KHR400bn capital requirements, and what market consolidation is anticipated?"},{"label":"Cross-Border Enforcement Efficacy","query":"How will the renewed China-Cambodia cooperation agreement specifically enhance the efficacy of cross-border law enforcement against illegal online gambling and human trafficking, beyond previous efforts?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[439,16333],"tags":[229,23911],"class_list":["post-24357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-legal-news","category-south-east-asia-news","tag-gambling","tag-gambling-regulation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/176"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24357"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24357\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24369,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24357\/revisions\/24369"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}