Trio deported after Military Police crack down on online scam
IMMIGRATION officials have deported two Nigerian men and a Vietnamese woman from Cambodia, while a local woman has been sent to court for a Facebook scam to cheat a farmer out of over $8,000 was foiled in Kandal province.
The Military Police in Kandal announced via a Facebook post that on February 10, a victim known only as Vanny, a farmer from Lvea Em district had tried to sue Facebook user Michael Johnson.
The username Michael Johnson was a fake profile used by the gang, which posed as an English national, and feigned compassion for the victim because he claimed to understand that the victim was poor and lacked proper shelter.
The Facebook page said: “After having relationships with the victim on Facebook for two months, the group then used the username to trick her into sending over $8,450 for ‘service payments’.
In return, he promised to send valuable items from abroad as well as construction materials to improve her shelter and livelihood.
After several days of investigation, the Kandal Military
Police arrested a local woman known as Sok Leang on February 12 who was involved in the scam. She had no proper job and acted as a postal worker, withdrawing money that the victim transferred via Wing.
On February 13, the Military Police arrested the three other suspects – the two Nigerians aged 31 and 21, and the Vietnamese woman, 26.
The Facebook page said the Khmer woman was sent to court for further legal procedures, while the three had been handed over to the Kandal police station.
The Military Police said the three were arrested at a rented house in Borey Lim Chheanghak in Dangkor commune’s Moal village in Phnom Penh’s Dangkor district. Three laptops, nine phones, two internet modems and some materia l s were a l s o s e i z e d a s evidence.
Kandal provincial police chief Chhoeun Sochet told The Post on Monday that the three foreigners had illegally lived in Cambodia and were already sent to the General Department of Immigration.
“We a lready sent the three to t he department and t hey have since been deported,” he said.