Posted on: January 7, 2025, 09:02h.
Last updated on: January 7, 2025, 09:11h.
An estimated 57 workers escaped from Cambodia’s O-Smach Resort on Sunday after enduring months of hostile work conditions at the casino, according to news reports.
The workers were holding metal rods from bed frames as they ran from the guarded and gated complex located in the Asian nation’s Oddar Meanchey province, according to eyewitness and police accounts.
Injuries Suffered During Escape
“Guards couldn’t stop or resist them, causing two to be wounded,” said an unnamed eyewitness quoted in media reports. “They beat up the security guards, opened the door and rushed out.”
Radio Free Asia, an editorially independent news outlet operated by the US government reported the workers often suffered abuse at the northern Cambodian gambling site.
In September, allegations were made that Ly Yong Phat and his business, L.Y.P. Group, were linked to human trafficking and forced labor taking place at his O-Smach Resort and other gaming sites. The US Department of the Treasury sanctioned the operations.
O-Smach Resort, located near the Cambodia-Thailand border, also is reportedly the site of an online gambling operation with a reputation of defrauding players, according to US government allegations.
Workers at the complex must labor long hours daily and are required to meet strict quotas. If they didn’t produce enough, they were beaten, Radio Free Asia reported.
Traffickers force victims to work up to 15 hours a day and, in some cases, resell victims to other scam operations or subject them to sex trafficking,” according to a US Treasury Department statement released last year.
Between 2022 and 2024, O-Smach Resort was the subject of a police investigation.
“Victims reported being lured to O-Smach Resort with false employment opportunities, having their phones and passports confiscated upon arrival, and being forced to work scam operations,” according to the US Treasury Department.
Beatings, Abuse Claimed
“People who called for help reported being beaten, abused with electric shocks, made to pay a hefty ransom, or threatened with being sold to other online scam gangs,” the US statement added. “There have been two reports of victims jumping to their death from buildings within O–Smach Resort.”
Previously, local authorities conducted rescue operations at the resort. One took place last March.
It’s believed that many of the workers who escaped on Sunday originally lived in Nepal and Pakistan before immigrating to Cambodia. Many of these workers now want to get jobs at casinos located in Poipet, which is about 124 miles from the O-Smach Resort, Radio Free Asia reported.
The escaped workers were questioned by local police on Sunday.
