PHNOM PENH: Cambodian authorities have arrested nearly 400 Chinese and Taiwanese nationals this month on suspicion of operating a telecoms scam to defraud victims in China, police said on Thursday.
The arrests are part of a regional crackdown as China battles telephone and Internet scams that have cost billions of dollars in financial losses.
Scams have targeted everyone from the elderly, the students and the unemployed to businessmen involved in legal problems. Scammers based overseas often pose as some kind of government official.
Police in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh on Wednesday arrested 225 Chinese nationals, including 25 women, suspected of an extortion scheme using Internet voice call technology, said Thou Saroeun, deputy director of the anti-terrorism police department.
“We are processing the case and we don’t know yet when this will move to deportation,” Thou Saroeun told Reuters, without elaborating.
On Aug. 2, police arrested 151 Chinese and three Taiwanese nationals in the provinces of Siem Reap and Banteay Meanchey, Uk Heisela, the investigations chief of the immigration department, told Reuters.
Authorities in Beijing accuse Taiwan of harboring criminal gangs behind many of the scams that have targeted victims on the mainland.
Cambodia is one of China’s closest allies in Southeast Asia and does not recognize the government of Taiwan, which Beijing considers a wayward province.
In recent years, it has deported more than 600 Chinese and Taiwanese to China after arresting them on suspicion of telecoms scams.
Since 2011, Taiwan and mainland China have cooperated in investigating telecoms fraud in Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines and elsewhere. Thousands of suspects, many from Taiwan, have been arrested since.
Last month, police in Indonesia said they had detained more than 150 Chinese nationals accused of a scam that had brought them an estimated $450 million by tricking victims into paying to make legal cases go away.
Some of the suspects arrested in Cambodia will be sent to China this week, Uk Heisela said.
“I don’t know when exactly, that depends on when China sends a plane,” he added.
Last month, Cambodia deported 105 Chinese and Taiwanese suspects to China, prompting a protest from the self-ruled island to Phnom Penh. Authorities in Taiwan have accused Cambodia of acting at China’s behest.
China has defended the deportations of people from Taiwan to China from places like Cambodia by saying the victims were all in China and so the criminals should face justice in China.
Cambodia arrests nearly 400 from China and Taiwan over telecoms fraud
Cambodia arrests nearly 400 from China and Taiwan over telecoms fraud
‘Keep dreaming’: NATO chief says Europe can’t defend itself without US
BRUSSELS: NATO chief Mark Rutte warned Monday Europe cannot defend itself without the United States, in the face of calls for the continent to stand on its own feet after tensions over Greenland.
US President Donald Trump roiled the transatlantic alliance by threatening to seize the autonomous Danish territory — before backing off after talks with Rutte last week.
The diplomatic crisis sparked gave fresh momentum to those advocating for Europe to take a tougher line against Trump and break its military reliance on Washington.
“If anyone thinks here again, that the European Union, or Europe as a whole, can defend itself without the US — keep on dreaming. You can’t,” Rutte told lawmakers at the European Parliament.
He said that EU countries would have to double defense spending from the five percent NATO target agreed last year to 10 percent and spend “billions and billions” on building nuclear arms.
“You would lose the ultimate guarantor of our freedom, which is the US nuclear umbrella,” Rutte said. “So hey, good luck.”
The former Dutch prime minister insisted that US commitment to NATO’s Article Five mutual defense clause remained “total,” but that the United States expected European countries to keep spending more on their militaries.
“They need a secure Euro-Atlantic, and they also need a secure Europe. So the US has every interest in NATO,” he said.
The NATO head reiterated his repeated praise for Trump for pressuring reluctant European allies to step up defense spending.
He also appeared to knock back a suggestion floated by the EU’s defense commissioner Andrius Kubilius earlier this month for a possible European defense force that could replace US troops on the continent.
“It will make things more complicated. I think Putin will love it. So think again,” Rutte said.
On Greenland, Rutte said he had agreed with Trump that NATO would “take more responsibility for the defense of the Arctic,” but it was up to Greenlandic and Danish authorities to negotiate over US presence on the island.
“I have no mandate to negotiate on behalf of Denmark, so I didn’t, and I will not,” he said.
Rutte reiterated that he had stressed to Trump the cost paid by NATO allies in Afghanistan after the US leader caused outrage by playing down their contribution.
“For every two American soldiers who paid the ultimate price, one soldier of an ally or a partner, a NATO ally or a partner country, did not return home,” he said.
“I know that America greatly appreciates all the efforts.”
