Lured into an online scam network, an African man spent almost a year in Cambodia trying to go home
In Cambodia, workers carried out online scams against people worldwide from inside massive fortified buildings they weren't allowed to leave PHNOM PENH, Cambodia -- The 33-year-old man, lured to Cambodia with the offer of a receptionist job, endured daily beatings for a month, locked in a dark room somewhere in the Southeast Asian country. He didn't know where he was, but he knew the price of his freedom: $6,000. He had arrived from Ghana in November 2025 with the promise of a $1,000-a-month job — way more than he could make back home. At a training session he was taught to promote work-from-home “jobs” to people online, dangling the prospect of easy money.
