Shadows of deception: A missionary's lament for Cambodia's scam plague
From Sihanoukville, a missionary talks about the many ambiguities behind the high-profile operations and arrests targeting the local scam farm system. With so much hypocrisy, he sees “silent complicity” and “utter abdication of responsibility.” Even scammers now “desperately flock to embassies claiming poverty”. As someone who loves this country, he calls for “true repentance.”
Sihanoukville (AsiaNews) – For weeks, Cambodia's crackdown on previously untouchable online scam centres has been causing a stir with high-profile arrests, business empires suddenly going under, hundreds of foreigners crowding consulates claiming freedom from scam centres. This has brought to the forefront of international public opinion a criminal system ignored for far too long. The scam centers are a system that employ thousands of people with turnovers of tens of billions of dollars. But is something really changing? Or are we simply witnessing a reshuffling of the cards, in a deeply corrupt context where no one truly wants to take responsibility?
This is the complaint made by Father Will Conquer, a missionary with the Missions étrangères de Paris, in Sihanoukville (Cambodia). In his “lament”, he describes a deep moral crisis behind the scam centres, wondering how long the road will be to get out of the rubble that this criminal enterprise, protected by powerful forces, has wrought to Sihanoukville.
As a simple servant of the Lord stationed in the once-serene shores of Sihanoukville, I have borne witness to the unholy underbelly of this land's latest affliction. For three years, I have ministered to the downtrodden, offering solace amid the ruins of moral decay. But now, in this so-called "scam war" that grips Cambodia like a serpent's coil, I must raise my voice—not in gentle prayer, but in righteous indignation. With my own eyes, I have captured the cunning duplicity at play: a collective feigned innocence that mocks true repentance. Let me, with the clarity of one who walks in faith, dissect this crisis, exposing its structural sins and the false prophets who perpetuate it. For in the eyes of divine justice, no one escapes accountability, though many here try.
In this turbulent storm of deceit, the most glaring sin is the utter abdication of responsibility—a deliberate evasion that permeates every layer of this infernal industry. Consider the recent capture of one Chen Zhi, a shadowy figure who traded pixels in video games for the blood money of organized crime. His downfall sent tremors through the scam syndicates, yet what followed was not contrition, but a masterful performance of victimhood.
Lowly foot soldiers, these so-called "scammers," swarm foreign embassies, passports conveniently "lost," weeping tales of human trafficking as if they were unwitting lambs led to slaughter. Meanwhile, the high priests of power – government officials – convene emergency cabinet meetings, proclaiming grand gestures like installing hundreds of surveillance cameras across Sihanoukville's neon-lit streets while henchmen of casinos bosses err in search of their lost black sheep. Casinos shutter their doors under the veil of anonymity, and some faceless immigration general is quietly demoted, a sacrificial pawn in a game where no king falls. Can we truly believe this charade? Irresponsibility here is no mere oversight; it is the very architecture of evil, woven into the fabric of an industry that thrives on plausible deniability. As a missionary, I see it as a modern Tower of Babel, where confusion and fragmentation shield the guilty from the light of truth.
1. The Fractured Chain: Division Not of Labor, but of Blame. In this wicked enterprise, roles are meticulously partitioned like the tasks in a factory of fraud—from slick marketers luring victims with honeyed promises, to "customer service" agents who gaslight the defrauded, VIP card dealers who launder ill-gotten gains, interpreters bridging linguistic barriers to betrayal, and coders crafting digital traps. Yet, no hand dares touch the red button of halt; each claims ignorance of the whole. Large, brick-and-mortar casinos cunningly subcontract with shadowy online operations, using the latter as a legal fig leaf to obscure their complicity.
Immigration officers, those gatekeepers of the realm, merely "follow orders" as they wave through hordes of scammers at Phnom Penh's airport—identified not by scrutiny, but by cryptic codes like "8844," signaling a flock of Sino-Indonesian operatives in uniform black t-shirts and flip-flops. They turn a blind eye, feigning oblivion to the parade of vice before them. It is a domino chain of command, invisible and insidious, where each piece topples the next, but no one claims the push. In my pastoral rounds, I have counseled locals ensnared in this web, and I tell you: this is not happenstance, but a deliberate design to evade the reckoning. As Scripture warns, "The wicked flee when no one pursues" (Proverbs 28:1), yet here they flee only to regroup, unrepentant.
2. The Veil of Ignorance: Knowledge as the Forbidden Fruit. Ah, the abuse of feigned ignorance—a bliss that is anything but innocent. In this labyrinth of lies, no one "truly knows" the full extent of the operation, or so they claim. Casinos morph their names with the frequency of a chameleon, leaving even their own employees adrift in confusion—referring vaguely to "the company" as if invoking some omnipotent, faceless deity. It echoes the dark days of the Khmer Rouge, when villagers whispered only of "the Angkar," that anonymous authority that demanded blind obedience. Staff shuffle between shell companies, their paychecks laundered through layers of obscurity, ensuring that when the hammer falls, fingers point everywhere and nowhere. This cultivated amnesia is a cunning tactic, a shield against prosecution, allowing the perpetrators to plead, "I knew not what I did." But it is time to see through this veil: ignorance here is not a defense, but a weapon, wielded to perpetuate the cycle of sin. How many souls have I tried to redeem in Sihanoukville's back alleys, only to find them trapped in this fog of denial?
3. A Foretold Ruin: Destined for the Abyss. Behold the city's skyline, marred by skeletal towers—half-built monoliths of hubris that stand as prophecies of failure. This architecture of ambition is no accident; it is a manifesto of inevitable collapse, much like the empires of old that crumbled under their own weight. The scam industry, cruising in fleets of Alphards and Lamborghinis, flaunts wealth extracted from the vulnerable, yet it is already bankrupt in spirit and substance. Scammers, earning fortunes that dwarf local wages, bizarrely flock to embassies claiming poverty, their coffers mysteriously emptied overnight. Before justice can even convene, the edifice crumbles – debts unpaid, operations vanished like mist. It is as if the Lord Himself has inscribed their doom: "For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?" (Matthew 16:26). This industry is not built to endure; it is engineered to implode, leaving chaos in its wake.
Make no mistake: the scam industry is the metastasizing cancer devouring Cambodia's soul, a blight to which far too many have surrendered in silent complicity. From the humble street vendors peddling wares to the weary workers in massage parlors, an entire ecosystem has bloomed to sustain this beast—hotels housing the fraudsters, eateries feeding their appetites, even transport networks ferrying them to and fro. They rebuilt Sihanoukville in their image, importing fancy chains like Starbucks to border towns such as Poipet and Bavet, masking exploitation with a veneer of progress. Yet, is the current "crackdown" a genuine scalpel to excise this tumor? I fear not. What we witness is a sly game of hide-and-seek: warnings whispered to scammers hours before inspections, allowing them to scatter like roaches in the light. Raids that net empty buildings, announcements of reforms that reshuffle rather than uproot. It is a reshuffle of the deck, not a purge – a cunning maneuver to preserve the status quo under the guise of action. As someone who loves Cambodia and its culture, but especially as a missionary thirsty for justice and truth, I call upon all – scammers, officials, and enablers alike—to heed the call to true repentance. For without it, Cambodia's wounds will fester, and the day of judgment will come unbidden. Let us pray for light in this darkness, and courage to confront the shadows within.
* missionary in Cambodia with the Missions étrangères de Paris.
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10/05/2024 18:32
15/10/2008
