The leaders of two rings that allegedly lured 88 Taiwanese nationals to Cambodia and forced them to participate in scams have been indicted for a second time by Taipei prosecutors after 30 more of their victims were rescued and returned to Taiwan.
The leaders of the two groups, surnamed Lin (?) and Lee (?), were among nine ring members first indicted in September 2022 after the first 22 of their victims made it back to Taiwan.
They were charged with human trafficking, attempted fraud, obstructing freedoms, violating the Organized Crime Prevention Act, and deceiving people to go abroad for profit.
Taipei prosecutors filed similar charges against Lin and Lee on Wednesday after another 30 of the rings’ victims returned home recently, without specifying when.
Neither prosecutors nor law enforcement authorities offered any details about the three dozen victims still unaccounted for.
According to Taipei prosecutors, beginning in late 2021, the two human trafficking groups placed recruiting ads on Facebook offering high-paying customer service jobs in the gaming sector in Cambodia to lure unemployed youths to work in the Southeast Asian country.
They then sold the recruits for US$17,000-US$18,000 per person to telecom fraud syndicates in Cambodia and turned the recruits over to the syndicates in industrial parks in Phnom Penh, Sihanoukville and other parts of Cambodia.
The syndicates held the victims against their will and forced them to engage in telecom fraud jobs, according to Taipei prosecutors.
Those who did not comply or performed poorly were beaten, given electric shocks, locked up in a confined space, or asked for a high ransom, the prosecutors alleged.
They were also threatened with stories of people having their organs taken, being buried alive, or transported to another place to face even worse conditions, prosecutors indicated.
Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel