Caught in Cambodia’s Scam Machine: Part 2

I'm Ayesha Rasco, and you're listening to the Sunday story from Up First. This is the second of our two part series with investigative reporter Shobani Mitani, a story about the people who were lured into working in the global cyber scam industry. Now if you haven't heard part one, you can go back and listen to that now in the feed. You'll definitely want the start of this story. At the end of part one, Schwiebe walked out through the gates of a scam compound after working for almost a year as a scammer. Right now we just want to go back home. Home to Uganda. Instead, he would wind up on the streets of Phnom Penh. Like tens of thousands of others who've been released in government raids on scam compounds across the country, Schwabe needed emergency shelter, food, and legal support. But instead of aid, there would be obstacles almost impossible to overcome. Amnesty International is calling the current situation in Cambodia a humanitarian crisis and says migrants are falling through the cracks. Shobani Mitanni continues Schwab's story. So after Schwab walked out of the scam compound, he felt optimistic. His plan was pretty simple. He would go to the airport and get on a plane, just like when he arrived, minus the Lexus. Part of the reason Schweib was confident was because he had almost completed his year long contract. Before he left the compound, he talked to his boss. I told the boss, my contract is over, but I need to go back home. Schweib was worried about one thing in particular. He knew he'd come in on a tourist visa and had overstayed it by eleven months. Schweib's boss wouldn't buy his return ticket back to Uganda, but he told him he'd deal with the complications from the overstayed visa. He'd clear the fines and he'd handle the paperwork. So with that understanding, Schweib bought a plane ticket. Quick one. It cost him $1,300. 1,300. Schweib didn't have a lot of money to spend. He told me he had about $3,600 or so in his bank account when he left the compound. This was the entirety of his savings, both from his previous job in Kampala and the little he was paid in Cambodia. But Schweib had never bought a plane ticket before, and he booked it so quickly that he misread the departure time, and he missed his flight. So at the airport, he booked another flight. He texted his boss to confirm everything was still good to go, but no reply. So Schwab decided to give it a few days. He canceled the ticket, and he went back to the city center to wait for the go ahead. Schwab had been in Cambodia for almost a year, but he'd only seen the inside of industrial buildings and garish casinos converted into scam compounds. He'd been looking at screens twelve hours a day. He'd seen nothing of the country at all. Suddenly, he …