Thailand vs Cambodia: A Battle Over Temples and Scam Compounds

This is the popular front podcast with me, Jake Hanrahan. We're focused on the niche details of modern warfare and under-reported conflict all across the world. Popular front is completely independent. Today we're speaking to Nathan Paul Seven and Lindsay Kennedy. They're investigative journalists working with Eyewitness Project, looking at the links between organised crime, conflict and corruption all over the world. They're going to be talking to us today about the conflict on the border between Thailand and Cambodia. Recently things got very heavy. There's been shelling back and forth gun battles and all of this is possibly related to temples and what is called scam compounds. Support us at patreon.com/popularfront Trade to the point what the hell is going on between Thailand and Cambodia. This was like kind of out of left field as far as I was aware. I mean I don't really focus on the area but basically more arounds over the border like arm clashes all of a sudden. What happened? What kicked all this off? Maybe explain what actually happened first because I think a lot of people just kind of went over their heads. Yeah so it definitely feels even here like it's not being completely out of nowhere but how heavy it got and such a short space of time has surprised everyone. But the tensions have been kind of building for the last seven, eight months between Cambodia and Thailand on a few different fronts. The thing that's usually always cited is this temple dispute. It goes back to these ancient temples, a line's drawing a map. They claim different areas of it but it's not really being about that. That's like one quite useful line for this. There's also been a lot leading up to that. So the last seven months we've had the Thai government is quite fragile. The Thai military is basically on the edge of doing another coup of taking over. They could really do if a big push for nationalism support for like a security concern. Cambodia is facing these huge accusations of being a full-on mafia state running this global scam and human trafficking empire. So both sides really needed a distraction the last year and tensions have been building up a bit. There was disputes over this temple. There was accusations from Thailand about Cambodia's involvement in this scam trade and then there was this phone call with the Prime Minister of Thailand and Hansen who was the Prime Minister of Cambodia. He's now basically still in charge, but he's ahead of the Senate and they kind of leaked that phone call. That led on to more and eventually Cambodians basically dug some trenches over near these temples and then a firefight started and that was back in May. That was actually before the phone call and then there was all this like tensions bubbling and then some Thai soldiers stepped on landmines around that temple border area but they said we're newly laid by the Cambodians. Cambodians denied that and then that night all the diplomats are recalled and the shelon and the small arms fire starts by like well they won two AM and one. Yeah I think like I think the thing is that there's like two realities happening at the moment right. If you ask any of the average person in Thailand or Cambodia it's about they'll say oh well you know that that side is encroaching on our territory around those temples and they have been arguing about this yet for a long time but every other time that there's been like a squabble over this it's never really got that much further than that and I think a Cambodian and Thai people are all really shocked that this is escalated as it has and everyone's scrambling around trying to find a reason why it has right but if you actually look at the two parties who are driving forward this war you've got on one side you've got the the Thai military and the Thai military stage is a coup about once every 10 years right and they're very much due a coup it's been 11 years so they but this but last time they did it for the first time ever the US which the major ally got quite pissed off with them and did cut military aid so they can't just do a coup the way they normally do but they've been desperately itching for one because last time they overthrew the democratically elected government it was tax insidinal archers the previous prime minister who they absolutely hate and he's like a big business guy and they did just didn't get on so they pushed they pushed him out and he was a very close ally of the Hun family here now his daughter and they recently sort of like liberalized again a little bit in Thailand and let there be elections again his daughter is now in charge so they hate her as already I've been looking for a way to get rid of her and having a skirmish at the border and putting them back in sort of pole positions to be like we're the only we're the only group that can protect you from from like you know an external threat is exactly what the Thai military is right now at the same time you've got the Hun family in Cambodia who've been in power for like 30 years or so they were under all this like when Nathan was talking about it's there they were they they've been under all this pressure because they've been accused by multiple different groups like Amnesty International like US government loads of different people have basically said that they are completely propped up by this multi-billion dollar industry of the scam compounds here and which is kind of like you've got to think of it like a narco state right but rather than drugs it's like running these huge online scam compounds with like lots of traffic labor so this has been really embarrassing for the Hun family internally that they've basically been accused of being a mafia state and they were like had a lot of internal criticism that was starting to grow they also needed a burst of nationalism and if you look at what's happened they've both very much got their own way there are massive marches and protests in in Thailand where the Prime Minister's been pushed out people calling for the militaries to take control because they're safe pair hands and well meanwhile in Cambodia you've got marches down the street of people holding the pictures of the Hun family specifically not the military here not anyone else just the Hun family no one's talking about scam compounds and suddenly no one's talking about scams anymore which is really ironic because if you look at when you actually look at the areas that they're fighting over they're all places that there are heavy presses these scam compounds right on the border and they're literally firing rockets over the top of them into each other and sometimes hitting them as the casinos and we've been tracing this for a while and we're increasingly convinced that the actual scam compounds themselves play a much bigger role in this than anyone's letting on. Can you explain exactly what they are sorry I'm a little bit lost here the scam compounds maybe you can just break that down a bit. So yeah just like everyone listening will have gotten those text right like hey we'll see a senior today and then you respond and then it's like it's a scam right but that's just one example because everyone knows that they're they're incredibly sophisticated there's there's lots lots of them but that has become an incredibly profitable business and it is mostly been run by forced labor compounds in Cambodia Myanmar, Laos, UAE and spread in a few other locations around the world now so they become this multi billion dollar trade mostly run at the top end by Chinese organized crime syndicates who use various ways to get in touch open up a relationship and either develop a kind of romance style scam or a crypto currency investment fraud scheme and it is raking in such a like an unfavorable amount of cash that it could be taken 50 billion a loan out of the U.S. economy and it's now accounting for at least 40% of the GDP of Cambodia alone so it's now become one of the biggest industries in this whole region and it's possibly even bigger than the global drug trade the scale of it and that is the scams that you all receive on a daily basis that people behind that are often forced labor victims out of Southeast Asia. That's the things of the actual compounds themselves they look like presidents they originally used to build them out the back of like casinos and stuff and they were like the extension of casinos and the cover would be they were doing online gambling online gambling has been banned for here for about five years so now instead they've actually just got to the point where because I know that no one's going to shut them down they will build these things that look like giant presidents heavily secured and often they'll the scam compounds themselves will hire security from that they take from the police or military here and that kind of like yeah they're kind of like moonlight as a security because they can carry their guns and wearing uniforms to make it a scarier and like there's a combination of forced labor and some people are willing but people live in these compounds where if you don't meet your targets or you step out of line or often torture people get killed all the time and they get sold to different places it's absolutely horrific and there's about at this point between like we think about between about 150,000 to 200,000 people trapped in this like just in Cambodia right and so they originally they built a lot of these places and cut ends in kind of casino towns like Sinukville on the coast but they've slowly started lining the entire border area all along the Thai border the entire stretch of it which is huge and the Vietnamese border and the Lao border as well. Now in it sounds insane but in like so many of these things target so many of these scam compounds the individual companies working within them target Chinese people in China so China really hates them they've been trying to crack down on them they actually did basically launch a war in northern Myanmar which is another hotspot for this last year where they forcibly shut down a lot of these compounds so this is not the first time it's been like basically a war over shutting down compounds there was one last year but what normally happens is these these places then bounce back but they just don't target whoever it is invaded them so now a lot of these compounds are careful not to not to harbor scam groups that target China they'll just target like the US or somewhere is that right and there's been a lot of chatter about whether or not that's what's happening on in Taiwan at the moment where it's possible we don't know exactly what Thailand's game is right now but because Thailand's made a lot of comments about how about how Cambodia is a hub rule of this but what's important mental is pretty much everywhere that's got caught in the crossfire so far there is a giant compound located there and there's been about 300,000 people evacuated from either side of the border but we know because we're still talking to some of the people trapped in those compounds that the compounds themselves haven't all been emptied so you've got thousands of thousands of people trapped in an area that's supposed to have been evacuated because of the war and neither side are even referencing that that this is happening and what's completely nuts is Thailand would have the moral upper hand if they just said you know the order these scam compounds are right there and we're going to shut them down that they both are Chinese allies and they're American allies what that's happened but they haven't said a word about this they're not even admitting that they know that they're there so we don't know what their game is we don't know whether or not they're pushing to take over some of these places we don't know whether it's going to be a bargaining chip to like like as part of the peace deals or we don't know whether or not they're going to do a China and basically say we don't care what you do here anymore as long as you stop targeting Thai people who are massively targeted by the scams which is what like so I mean Thailand has three borders, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar and each of those three countries are three of the biggest scam also drug trafficking hubs of the world but there is a bit of an agreement it seems to not target Thai people for the scams and not to traffic Thai victims into the Laos and Myanmar side but the Cambodia side hasn't even claimed ball in that so yeah like Lindsey said they want to increase their influence there or they are generally trying to hit these compounds and and hit the money that's behind the top levels of connections to the prime minister here so that they can they they can reduce the power of those compounds that are targeting Thai but there's definitely there's a lot of factors here and that's complex but the the the rule of the scam compound is definitely a driving factor of all. Right so sorry I know I know you kind of have explained it but I'm still trying to get made around what why would Thailand suddenly then care about this if it's in Cambodia okay it's on their border but a lot of things are on the border so because because a lot of these places actually target Thai people so especially in there's a the city called Puipet which is right on the border which is full of is basically just completely made up of these giant compounds now and for a long time now and like that that that's an area which with partly with scams and partly with its online gambling sites which are often quite scammy as well but actively target people like people in Thailand and there have been times in the last couple of years where the ties have lost basically lost it with Cambodia and insisted on coming over and sending their own police to raid these places and shut them down or have like taken down like satellite dishes like cut off the electricity they they are kind of getting quite they have been getting quite angry with them for doing this but then there's also like they're we also know so for example like one of the areas that that is right in the center of all the fighting right now and we can tell we can see from satellite imagery that until very until really recently it it was it was nothing there apart from a scam compound owned by this Gakotri Piapp who's who's already like sanctioned and is like you know for his involvement in this but the only thing there is a crossing into Thailand and if you look on the satellite imagery you can see all the minivans that are like the classic trafficking minivans lined up to go across middle of absolutely nowhere so it's not feasible that the border force it the border force and potentially the Thai military don't know about this and aren't complicit in letting those people go through and let and trafficking those people so on one hand they don't want them to target Thai people anymore because costing a Thai economy of absolute fortune right now so be targeted with scams and on these legal on and gambling sites and but on the other hand we know that they have been quite complicit in moving people towards compounds so it's it we're still trying to work out exactly what their game is it's also it's not just as they've started mentioning this right so I know it all sounds like a bit wild but like on on that build up attentions like we were talking about before the conflict actually started and I love how we're not even in that yet and the before that started when Thailand was accusing Cambodia of being this hub as well as all these international organizations at that same time Thailand then introduced a and are exploring for for Kokan who's a very very senior Cambodian official very very well linked to the the Hun family who is like a known scam boss operator likely making billions from that and they allege that those billions are also linked to the Hun family who's benefit from it so they'd already start going after a lot of the the financial assets around the scam industry that was propping up the Hun regime and one of the first things that happened so this entire fight has been happening on the northern border with Thailand Cambodia is northern border with Thailand which is where these these temples are right and when Cambodia fired into Thailand and the first time they fired into Thailand Thailand's and initial response wasn't to fire back from those positions they actually fired from the south from the southwest of the country can put like about 400 miles away completely different location they fired into an area that connects into Thailand the only thing that's there is a kind of scam compound city run by the same guy that I mentioned before to your peer who's in the north and it made absolutely no sense in terms of where the war was at that moment or where the conflict was at that moment for them to be firing on this they didn't really make it they didn't really give a justification of why they'd fired on this but it felt very obvious that they were to us that they were retaliating specifically against against a money making entity that's linked to the government and they're disrupting their businesses there and people are clearing out rapidly a lot of the a lot of the scam the scam bosses that can do are moving their people to other locations so it could be already costing the Thai and sorry the the Hun family my millions or billions like already doing that and they can't say anything because this person will not supposedly property from it and second of all is supposed to shut it all down in the last month so they can't complain that this is happening at the end of the day you've got a situation where the the Thai is very very very early on in this like five they are so conflict decided to push the boundary of where they were fighting by several hundred kilometers stretching them a lot thinner than they needed to be for for little strategic reason that they've even been able to mention very weird uh so what sparked it from with sick of your scam compounds targeting our people in Thailand what what sparked it from that to nowadays gunfire well so I think that I think we think that it might have been a slight miscalculation on both sides we think that there may have been a kind of appetite for a certain level of conflict in but in both countries because the military is looking to strengthen their position in Thailand and the Hun family were looking to strengthen their position by getting people nationalistic again so we think that we think they they kind of they have they have they're every they've been tired a lot of times in the past where things have got heated up with that border um like the ties and the the Thai and um Cambodian troops at a station they're winding each other up you also get like you know idiot groups of kids who go to these temples and start singing the national anthem of what other side they're on to wind it already upright you get this kind of little explosions of like aggression um because they are kind of flashpoints but normally they kind of work well contained they don't go anywhere so yeah the fact that like come but well Cambodian time both decided that it was worth like firing at each other and like you know like sending over F16s and like like just sending rockets to the territory is completely mental um which is why we yeah it's just can't just be about these I think I think as well though there are there are different um decision makers that are along the the the conflict the border area as well right so after the the land main incident which was the night before the fighting actually started and just just after and they they they got rid of the like the ambassadors uh like that that's when the fighting started but it started I mean four possibly up to six different locations started fighting within that night and then I you know like I think a lot of that might not be coming from actual central command of the Thai or the Cambodian militaries as well rather than where they're ready the no things are escalating and they'll take the object they end up they end up jumping into the fight as well and so it escalated rapidly and then so much worse than and I think either side really anticipated especially Cambodia because they are just like in no way a match for the Thai military and like they've been you know accused of hitting a few civilian targets and then really laying in the the rockets that came from there there be M21 systems but like that is a pretty like old school Soviet style launcher and that's their main weapon and the Thai's have just this like unbelievably more equipped army navy and air force and it's just really overwhelmed Cambodia and I don't think anyone's expecting it to accelerate that much that quickly so are they running with this is because of the temples like what is the official thing between Thailand and Cambodia what are they saying publicly why this has happened because I imagine a lot of people are going what the hell is happening yeah yeah so the official thing is that you've got you've got these two ancient temples two ancient temple sites and there's been like disagreements over which which side they fall into territory wise like for a long time and ever so often one side will accuse the other side of slightly encroaching into their territory or like areas that are supposed to be kind of No Man's land and but like so Cambodia won like an ice show ruling about 15 years ago now which kind of confirmed that one of the one of these temples was like in there in their land and there's another one of the other temple sites they were in the process of pushing for the same recognition and so that's also been a bit of a flashpoint kind of and but yeah it's kind of one of those things that it feels like whenever there's a lot of economic and social pressure at home in Thailand and Cambodia and there's a lot of anxiety in both countries and like you know both countries are currently reeling from things like you know the tariff increases and stuff from the US at the moment they've both got their own problems at home whenever you have these problems you kind of get these scuffles around the border because they just become a symbol of national pride so it's kind of like one of those things that it doesn't normally go anywhere but the odd thing is that neither Cambodia or Thailand they're actually announcing what their strategic objectives with this conflict have been so yeah it started in a way because of the temples and then they said well you you violated our territory and then fire them again and now it was like like we are now responding to the threat given by Cambodia we're responding to the threat provided by Thailand neither side are saying that they're actually going to seize the territory of these temples or or what their end goal is to try and ask to kind of limbo that a lot of people will be left with and then alongside the actual fighting which is kind of holding back right now in a pretty shaky ceasefire there's just been this enormous social media campaign to drum up hatred against ties and the Cambodia side and then vice versa over there as well and that's been getting really really out of hand that a lot of like this information has been shared they had like basically videos of like crop duster planes and the workers and the ties of like laying over toxic gas and into Cambodia and these things are just like spreading so much so now it's like our security is being is being infringed on we need to fight back that's what everyone's saying on the street about this on both sides they don't actually need an outcome that the governments are trying to achieve but this is the thing that you said you said what's the official line then now they're still figuring out what their official lines are because there was no official line in the beginning so like and if you look at all the kind of like all the narrative all the kind of like social media stuff going back and forward the only thing anyone was saying about this conflict for the first like like five days or six days or something was like hashtag our Thailand side first or hashtag Cambodian fight first and it was like no one knew what the reason was for the firing it was just but they started it and so and that kind of was reflected in the fact that neither government was actually giving a reason why it was happening it was just we've had a provocation so yeah it there was no real reason given for this war at the beginning so it's sounding to me like your scam compounds theory is playing pretty big part and it actually I think that sounds pretty fucking spot on yeah I mean but it's like both sides have very when very quickly as well to talking about how the other one is like the other country is the center of scam compounds and trafficking and stuff they both started mentioning us before we'd cotton on and we were like why is that relevant and you're like okay right that's that's actually quite central but they were but no one will mention the fact that they're both sides refused to actually comment on the fact that there these things are literally sitting between them on the battlefield right now yeah so I mean there's videos that we we see from my being in the chats of these like the these scam compound grips basically have chats and telegram thousands tens of thousands of people and how to traffic people who don't own their money yes I've wild system but they talk about their day-to-day as well and we try to help with rescues of people who are in contact with a lot of folk that are in the compounds and their shared videos are just rockets actually going by by their window and like yeah we're we're not saying that the the only factor here that this is a war that's entirely around scam scam compounds like I don't find that's the case I think it's all got a bit out of hand for both of them I think that's driving force but there's also the nationalism and the distraction but finally anyway how much the temples play a role well the temples have been there for over a thousand years the multi billion dollar scam business that stretches along the border now has only been there for about two so I feel like the guns haven't been fired in the last 10 15 years so why now yeah I think you're bang on with that not again not like I agree I don't think it's just over that but it's like a mix between the temples the scam compounds and then a kind of thread unraveling you can't really put it back in the books I think I know there's a ceasefire though now like so maybe they are trying but what's what's the I even saw the ceasefire there were both saying like both sides broke it within an hour or something what's happening with the ceasefire? We were out of the day that the ceasefire was and was announced actually and I was like really really quite heavy fate in where we're trying to find evidence of cluster ofinations used and there's a lot of shell and there's a lot of drones and we were in a displacement camp that had been just set up and actually that nationalistic thing wasn't really there people were just like I just want to go home I do not care about this it's just like go home you know and but none of us knew that the ceasefire have been announced in that time so there's no connection and then we found out that it was like no one really knew is this going to hold it's going to go in it didn't the first night I think the first three nights there was accusations from both sides about price of beer violations but then a lot of it's been disinformation as well it's been incredibly hard to verify now I especially a lot of a lack of reports and the Cambodian side and then restricted access in both sides and from the military so it's really hard to know when a ceasefire has been violated but the one thing that has seemingly been agreed on that has been consistently violated is the Thailand and after the actual fighting stopped about maybe three days ago they moved into one really remote border region and set up look like they were getting ready to set up trenches or getting barbed wire out and heavy machinery and the Cambodians have managed to kind of like remove that eventually but the only thing present in that place again was once like a scam compound village basically but now it does seem to be in a kind of fragile way of holding but in peacetocks in Malaysia right now which Trump is trying to take a lot credit for as the Malaysians are are broken in that I think I think most likely that some kind of agreement will be reached tomorrow but the rhetoric is all already got so violent I mean the Cambodians today are saying that the ties are still planning to assassinate their former prime minister I'm saying and they were accusing the ties that being ready to launch an imminent attack they're just like 48 hours ago so I don't actually know how either side reigns the rhetoric and on this even if they do reach some kind of agreement so the chances of it kicking off again it doesn't make any sense because there's actually nothing physically to gain but the anger so high and like I think there's always that chance that they just don't have put it back in the box like he said can you can you go into the level of fighting on border we we were Victor our lad that those the socials he was really getting some crazy footage and every now and then he sent it to me and I was like nah you sure that's like there and it was like it was look like very heavy fighting can you kind of maybe just break that down a bit like what how intense was this me well when we were when the day that we were the day that they announced this forever and the hours before that I mean we were up on the northern border in an area that was like that was yeah that was under fire there wasn't direct there wasn't like direct combat there wasn't like we didn't have small small fires at the area it was basically yeah it was just like all rockets flying back and forward but like one we you know we could hear every few seconds like explosions around us from the ties like we could hit the drones were coming over constantly we were seeing like people's home like some people's homes that have been like blown to shreds that we're still trying to investigate whether or not there were class communications used because there was some evidence that might have been and which is just like massive overkill you know for like you know like on the civilian area if not a walker and constant drones as well so I mean I think the death toll right now is only it's only about about 40 yeah officially but the thing with that really in small arm fighting is like that was all mostly happening like right up at the border region like most of the destruction took place with the with with the artillery the drones and the f16s but that I think there was an element as well man of them like a lot of the old boys especially in Cambodia that it fought either under or against the camera rouge but just like live that full combat life it looked like someone that's just been waiting for it especially the ones out by the temples which is most you know Cambodia remote you can get and you see the guys like fag on their mouth no boots on no shirt on just firing some Chinese AK over a bunch of sandbags it's like he's just been waiting for it so this is the other thing I think yeah like so one of the main one of the key areas that was like central to fighting especially animal being again the only one the only thing that of any interest or no now is as a quite big scam compound but the only but it's famous because it's the it's the burial place of Polpa who's the Khmer Rouge leader and there's still a loyal small loyal following to Polpa around that area and like a woman who pretends to his grave every day so you've kind of got all these old school like should have died out now but like you know these old school Khmer Rouge soldiers that yeah I've almost like gone into like steeper mode going to be activated and like when we're talking about like things kicking off suddenly I don't know whether like you can necessarily they ever quite leaves you just the whole let's pick up a rocket and fire and it's Thailand from my estimation I mean there was when we were running away from we're trying to run away from from a drone and there was spotted and there was an old guy who were with and he's on a 70th he just turned and said like do you want to get my friend yeah we get my French and I was like that wasn't a new trend so I bought you've been waiting for for a long time for that do you want to get in my trend you fucking over get that with my friend but then like you the people say will I be ridiculous for a compound body only landmines especially when the folks are so hard to get rid of all the landmines over the last they 30 years and have that amazing on that and they're supposed to our schedule to be landmine free by 2030 somehow and like I'll be insane for them to start start laying them again it's like I but you've got to remember that a lot of the sessions and any conflict a lot of the sessions on this have been made by those old boys at the border so yeah we're just waiting for it to kick off again and what do they know how to do they know how to landmines they know how to they know how to like you know through around that at Chinese AK popular front is entirely grassroots and independent subscribe to our patreon for hundreds of exclusive bonus episodes extra video content access to the popular front network and more keeps us moving forward keeps us independent patreon.com/popularfront if you like popular front you probably don't like surveillance and internet censorship so we've teamed up with proton VPN who was sponsoring this episode they're offering our listeners a deal on their services that will help you swerve the internet gatekeepers and various firewalls go to protonvpn.com/popularfront to save money on internet privacy services with proton VPN yeah and also like there's no rules with this stuff you know let's be honest there's no rules when things go mad people just go right I'm doing this you know what I mean it's never like it's never something like well they said they're gonna remove this so it's not gonna happen again like basically everything can get reversed at any minute I feel the leaked phone call I forgot to I forgot to talk about that now we mentioned at the start I know it's kind of gone past that but that was quite a big thing at the time right what's what is this leak phone call what what was said how did it how did it happen so this was not so in the kind of like few months that there was kind of like a bit of a tip for tax situation in at the border um where yeah there was kind of like a few exchanges of fire and like it was getting a bit aggressive but nothing really major had happened yet um a hunt set and who is is the former prime minister of of Cambodia but he handed over to his son like last year he's still very much seen as like running things behind the behind you know so if I very much the puppeteer uh he he has really good friends with um textings and a watcher who was kicked out by the ties in the previous um the previous coup um and um it's like the cinema watch family like they're very pro business like they're very and they're kind of like got gambling links I think and they've been kind of more interested in introducing us new casino bill in Thailand that I think would mean in your autographs yeah like um which I think that would kind of have been a bit of a door open to having compounds in in in Thailand it was another thing um but here's um so but yeah so here's the taxing um taxing's daughter is is was a prime minister at this moment um and she was on like she had this phone call with her and send where uh she didn't know he was recording it where um he used to calm the tension yeah and she was like and she was like and she was like I think she's broke she's grown up with him as like you know her dad's friend and she's like cool she's like kind of sucking up so better she calls him like uncle which is like you know a kind of respectful way of like but like not the way a prime minister speaks to the prime minister right um and um but she also then slacked off her own generals and said they were causing the trouble at the border because they wanted was one particular general wanted to make himself more famous um and she basically she'd get it under hand anything Hansen's want she'll do it and then clearly she hadn't done whatever she said that she was going to do um to make sure that they that their interests were you know protected at the border uh because he then had a hecifit and said and complained about this this um what she said in this phone call I think people doubted that she really had said these things so then he just released the whole tape and that was the kind of inciting moment when the military in Thailand were like okay well now we have an excuse to be like we we we should have no faith in this person she's undermining her own military um and they and then it was very easy for them to insist that she was kicked out so I think that might have just been a miscalculation from Hansen yeah I think I mean I think part of the tape would already been leaked somehow from from the ties but you don't really know how and then Hansen was like I will right screw it I'll I'll just take the whole tape and here so that kind of like disbanded their relationships and kind of gave any reasons again our hold on a stability between the two and each just characterised why is it that Thailand so often has these clues what is it specifically I was I was that just become like a tradition there I mean I don't I don't know exactly but like it's kind of I mean the kind of modern Thailand's like the kind of restructured Thailand and he's only less than a hundred years old right and it was started with a military coup and then the military just have never kind of let go they've kind of always been this really strong force they've always and they and the thing is like the military as we as we found on like other investigations when we've been looking at things like weapons trafficking drugs trafficking the military and the police they'd kind of do have a bit of a lockdown on controlling these trades right controlling things that trafficking trades they make a lot of money out of these things um and the military we're not happy with Thailand legalised weed princes yeah because they were making a lot of money out of protecting the you know protecting the movement of it and yeah and they've heard and like so and you know so they've got to stay super relevant like all the time and like so this this moment for example when you've got like a very sort of pro business um uh like democratically elected leader or whatever against like an old boys flub of like we control like you know we're used to controlling things like elicit flows of drugs and weapons and stuff the way that we want to control and we don't want anyone infringing on that you've kind of got just very different ideas of how Thailand should be I think and how who who gets to have power yeah I think though as well the this is this comes down to one of the key differences it does exist between Cambodia and Thailand Thailand's always had a very very strong influential uh monarchy and military um and then they kind of like the the the the government is somewhere like in between and there was these three powers uh balanced for control constantly but that powerful military never left much like there is the with the tapadal in in Myanmar whereas in Cambodia when Hun Sen uh actually took over power in the 90s what he did was he didn't allow an independent um military to grow from strength to trend and be a rival of him instead again with the using the elicit flows uh but with this it was it was illegal logging it was the temperate what Hun Sen dead was he consolidated to control overall the the branches of government or the armed forces anyone of a gun that might not like him and gave them enough of a huge personal income on an elicit trade like illegal logging um to to the families that that ran the military or ran different provinces that the army in itself never really gained that much power as an independent force which powerful armies inside the powerful families inside it, but the army was never one collect, you know, unified, collected group. Whereas in Thailand, no government has ever really been able to take away from that constant power that the Thai military has much like what me and mine. But 100% was always, and now I'm in that in theory. They're like the ultimate commander of the, like, they're like, the, like, the ultimate commander of the military, right? They're like, they're like the senior commander in, they always have been. And they've also like, I don't want to go too niche, but like in Cambodia, you're like, to maintain power as a family here, you, like, you kind of have to have just the love people in government, just the people in the armed forces, the military in the police, and just the love people in, in like the high end of business, so basically the called Makhniyas, like, it's kind of like being a lord, except that it kind of also reflects like how, like, sort of powerful you are in business, right? And the, and so you kind of have to have just enough people scattered between all these things. And the game for the Hund family, since Hansen's been in power, has been making sure that no other family can quite outdo them in the number of people they have in these top positions. So they've managed to say sensual to everything. Now what's really interesting is that the family that kind of does kind of more control the military in Cambodia, the Tia family, they, they've historically been really useful when they have been problems with Thailand, because they have, they're also like part Thai, and they've been like a useful bridge for negotiating with Thailand. They have been kind of rumblings and gossip that the Tia family were not happy that, that, Hansen turned over to his son, that maybe they wanted to take her, I thought it was their time for power. And sort of like psych concerns, they might be making a play for, for, for like, for ultimate power, right? Now the thing is that what, what has kind of played out really well for the Hund family with this, with this conflict is that the Tia family, whose whole thing has been their closeness with Thailand all this time, haven't really been able to say anything about the war, like Tia Ban, who also Hansen over to his son, there was this moment like last year when everyone just handed over to their oldest child, it was amazing. And, and, and he, the only things he was like putting out on his socials and stuff were like, talking about how much he missed his friendship with the Thai generals at a moment when the untold country is seething about Thailand, right? And so it was completely out of touch with like the kind of nationalism that people were failing. And he's kind of like, look, that whole family have now been sort of put back in their box because they cannot compete with the popularity that the Huns are feeling at the moment. So in Cambodia, they marched in the streets with, with, with posters of the Prime Minister and maybe, well, more of the Prime Minister's dad and sometimes Prime Minister and then sometimes his mum. And then in Thailand, they're marched in the streets with, with photos of the, and I think that's the, that's kind of key difference here is that it's just the consolidation of power. The royal family are really strong right in Thailand. Or at least that's the perception I always got. If they weighed in properly, like, if they kind of been like a fucking stop here or, yeah, this is good. Like, what's their stance? You know, a lot of protests and, and Bangkok and I actually think they managed to somehow get the king on camera and the asthma bird. I think you just kind of came out of a very diplomatic line of way, of we love them anyway. So it's like, I think the current king, I quite like going in Thailand. So the current king, I don't think it's had quite the same popularity because of, if you look up, there are various, quite mental stories. As his dad did, and I think he's, so the royal family don't poke her nose in too much because again, they, they don't want to be the target of the military. They don't want to have this power clash between them. So they've not expressed any dissatisfaction with the government, but I have really expressed the equate neutral. So in Thailand and Cambodia, both places have like a very revered monarch that people, the default thing is that you love them. Like, you kind of, you have, you love, you know, you love the royals, you love the king. And everyone has to keep repeating that they love the king of all the time. You can't not do that. But the actual, and, and the, the kings themselves never actually comment directly on politics. It's kind of like an unspoken rule. They don't actually say anything. But like, old lads, I bet, I bet also a difference to the two royal families as well is the, the Cambodian royal family are known to really be a bit skinned. They don't really have much, much, much cash. We've kind of like had their, their power and their, their wealth stripped away of baby's reasons over the generations, whereas the Thai royal family are the richest royal family. And the world, then that includes the, the, the, the Saudis. Wow. How the fuck? That's why he's always just buying like Balenciaga. That seems to be all he does. Like whenever I see him, he's either doing something nuts or like, strolling around in like, Rick Owens or some shit. Like, how do they make with that money? Yeah, he, yeah, he did go through a phase of doing things like making his dog a general. I'm sorry, but like, fucking why not? Like, you know, like, if you're going to be the royal family, at least like, do not stuff like that. Well, there was like his, his, his birthday party. There was a very old, there was like his, his, his girlfriend at the time, like, came out topless with this cake, there was his wife. That's better, I guess, for the royal stuff. I came out topless with a cake, and it was very old. And then sitting at the chair was like, his anointed, I got pointed a dog. Actually, like, he's not quite there. Oh, I love it. I love it. It's better than ours. But ours is just like what fucking like tax thieves and pedophiles. Like, at least like, have a party for the dog, you know? But they, yeah, so I mean, so this was like, before he came, before he took over after sad died, and the thing is, like, the royal family has always been this kind of like symbol of like extreme modesty and that is good, but it's values. So yeah, if you weren't happy about a pie, I'm fine. Just made like the top or top lad, the king. It's just brilliant. I mostly chose in Germany, we're in Croft, so like he's a better guy. He's a big guy. He's a big guy. He's had to get back in his box and see him. He took over the throne. Crazy. It's it's weird because I watch Thai books and in every, every single promotion, they have to like thank the king and you know, there's like a poster and there's a whole ceremony. You can how much they love the king. And then I Google the king one. So I was like, what like this guy? Like is fascinating? Like, I mean, as far as I'm aware, like you said, they're not like, it's, I mean, Thailand's a pretty free country from what I understand. Cambodia, I don't know enough about what's, what's it like there? Is it kind of more authoritarian or what? Just quickly before I say, actually, with one aspect of the tensions building up to Cambodian Thailand, came what was it last year? Because there's a there's a big dispute with who invented, you said Thai books, Thai and what they call in Cambodia can come out. It's the same sport. Cambodians came to invented it and Thailand stole it, but it came down to this. It's this really big diplomatic argument. And I think Thailand were hosting as a Southeast Asia games or the ASEAN games. Oh, yeah. Yeah, they banned the, they, they, they, they, they, they, they said that it will be called can come out. And Thailand said, we won't perform if it's called can come out and Cambodians went, yeah, cool. I usually always went anyway. So then, but that's like, you know, like, kind of like a weird or a level of this, but they have all these ongoing, like, kind of odd disputes. But like, about the differences of the, yeah. So I think I think I think it's in both countries, it's very kind of like socially liberal, like day-to-day, like as in, like, you can kind of, there aren't, I mean, I mean, Thailand's kind of like, you know, relatively progressive for the region, it's got, yeah. Yeah, I mean, sorry. That kind of stuff is like, yeah, China's got gay marriage, like, as it has legalized gay marriage now. Cambodia's not done that yet, but it's like, not, I wouldn't be surprised if it did. Like, it's kind of, they're both quite socially liberal in the city's kind of thing, but like, you know, if you go up in the countryside or something, then you kind of have, I guess, a more, kind of like, sort of like Buddhist values, kind of lifestyle. But it's not it doesn't feel autocratic in that way, but in Cambodia, especially, like, you can't really do anything without having to feed, like, so every tiny bit of your life in Cambodia, if you're a Cambodian, you end up having to, like, pay bribes for something, like, pay like tea, like, pretty money for something. And it's like, it's so controlled that, because it's called like the patch in a system where people, like, you, everything goes up and everything, all the money flows up to the top, which is how, like, the, the, the ruling family kind of stay rich, really. So if you're, like, you know, if you, if you have any job that's kind of vaguely government connected, so, like, I don't know, a teacher or a doctor or anything, right? You, you kind of, or anything like in government or being like a forest ranger or something, you have to pay like a portion of your salary to your, your superior. And they've got to pay a portion of, and it's like this pyramid scheme, right? And so what it means is, if you've got, if you go into, like, the police, especially, or the military, so you get paid 200 bucks a month, you've got to pay $100 to your boss. Yeah. Or, however much of it, right? But you're the real value of the position of why it's sought after, why people often pay a bribe to get that position, is because of all the illegal stuff you do on the side, which you, some of which will be commissioned by your directorate superior, and some of which is not. But either way, you've got to split the money with them, and then they got the money with their superior all the way to the top. So everything goes up in this pyramid. And what it kind of means is that in terms of the freedom to get the job you want, or to live where you want, or just like, you know, to open a business where you want, or know that, you've got, you know, that you can stay, you can stay on the patch of land that you have, where you, you know, where you've put your house or whatever. All of these things are so tied into where, how much you can pay into that system, and like, how connected you are all the time. So I think a lot of Cambodian people feel very trapped state, like, in terms of like, where their lives are going, and how much freedom they have over there, like, you know, they're destiny. But in terms of like, whether you can go out and get drunk, and whether it's okay to be gay and having one pen, that's all fun. But I think that's something that Cambodian and Thailand both share, is that there are restrictions on me, where you can say online, or what you can say with their own family and Thailand. Like, you know, there's restrictions on that, and you don't feel free, you don't have normal elections, like, yeah, yeah, there's, so there's always gay restrictions. But it's almost like a kind of like, like, like, sush diplomacy, where like, both Cambodian and Thailand will say, like, if you get middle class enough, then you can go out and you can drink, you can do whatever you can hit the gay bars, you can dance, like, there's very few restrictions on what time and what you can actually do. And that means that like, it's not like, you know, when the Arab Spring happened, and people like, actually, I want a fundamental change in my life, there's like, if you can deal with the corruption, and then you get into the into the kind of groove, actually, being able to enjoy yourself, but it does keep people happy enough if you don't, if you don't track down on that socially. Right. I guess it comes down to like, what, what do you consider free, right? Like, I mean, people in England, vast majority of people think we have like a free democratic country, because they can call a politician a dickhead onto it or whatever, fucking nonsense, they think is like working. But, you know, as we've seen recently with the, this nightmare, age restriction stuff on the internet, which is absolutely nothing to do with stopping children from seeing pornography, which is what they say it is. But one of the very first things that happened was it started tracking people that were, for example, on Reddit forums that were negative towards Israel. Why the fuck do you need a 18 plus thing to log into that? You know, it's just ridiculous. And there's loads of different things that's happened with. And, you know, if they were really bothered about it, they would stop kind of allowing music videos that are like basically soft porn, but that's fine. You know, and I mean, I don't give a fuck either way, but it's just see through its nonsense. And I guess it kind of comes down to that. Like, I think a lot about this, like, is it really, what is free really? You know what, I mean, like, I would argue that like most people in Thailand are pretty free to do whatever, but then I knew this anarchist group that were they were pretty big. And, you know, all of them got arrested for saying something bad about the king. And it's, I don't know, I guess it depends what you see as free, right? I know it's different per country, but in terms of the military, what are they fighting for? Do you think it's more like you said earlier, like the justice like old fucking grudge or do you think that this new thing is like they really believe it? Because I always find it interesting that the people fighting on the ground generally are not fighting for what, you know, people think they are. Well, I think Cambodia really wants this to be done now. I think they've got what they wanted out of it, which was like, you know, a refocusing of support around the Hun family. They got that very quickly. And now everything now is just lost. And I think, and every day as well, every day that these scam compounds can't run normally, every day that like a scam groups are deciding to go somewhere else instead of these compounds, they are potentially losing millions a day, right? So they don't want this done. They just want it over now. The Thai side, I think, won't completely let go of this until the Thai military has declared that they are in charge of the country again, without actually having to do a coup, because they've got public backing. So I think that will be when it probably, I think personally, that will be kind of the moment that I have it. We don't know what kind of negotiations are happening on the border over those massively important businesses. But also in terms of like the actual boys out there fighting. And that's like that's a very, very far removed concept from any of these big like geopolitical games that the big boys are playing, right? And I think that, yeah, we discussed earlier that the old guys that have been waiting for a conflict to kick off again and then can't look up. But there's just so many of these guys are super rural Cambodia, super rural Thailand and something like dispute over the temples, especially when that's been your whole life living around that area. And then being very aware that there's always a risk that fighting can start over that. Your life does revolve around that. And then that becomes a key part of your Cambodia or your Thai identity. So I'm sure that a lot of those guys, the guys that you'll see videos of like actually in the fire fights, a lot of them will really just be thinking, this is for my country, this is to preserve these temples that are so important for my history and that either sides could be saying that. And that's a really difficult thing to take that back again, because I Cambodia is now announced that they're introducing mandatory conscription from next year. And I don't actually think that's going to be that difficult for them to achieve, because now so many people and it could be all academic kids and in front of them, it can be your farm kids that might win into the military anyway. There's this renewed love for Cambodia. I think it's the same on the Thai side and renewed hatred for the enemy as well, the ties over the border. And it's now people aren't really like on both sides are kind of like rallying behind the government, behind the military and kind of like feel this need to like fight for their country and what they think is their culture. So those guys will go out and they'll keep dying for this if it kicks off again. Yeah, it's such a shame. I haven't been to Cambodia or anything. But like every everyone I know from Thailand, everyone I know that goes like just such a nice happy, vibrant kind of people. And it's such a shame that these people might get flung straight into a war. I'm sure the same it's the same on Cambodian side. Do you think this is going to escalate? I know it's impossible to say, but do you do you see like the writing is on the wall or are you hopeful that it might not? I think they might have reached a limit of how much they can continue to say there's actually a point in continuing this, especially when there's days of talks. But that doesn't I think they'll continue the kind of like information warfare with the media. So both sides have actually blocked each other's newspapers from being accessed in the country. I think that'll continue. The social media, like Vittual, the hatred to demise, the ties, I think all of that will continue. And I think there is always now the risk that I wouldn't say no to this kicking off again. I think it's more likely to all stop, but it's also just on such a knife edge now that it really could just pop off again. And then the next few days that is possible or it just continues bubbling under the surface and then the hatred just continues to rise. I think there's no strategic goal here apart from possibly whatever they decide quietly is going to happen to those like scam compound areas in the border. If they can't reach an agreement, I think something might pop off again. But if they do quietly reach an agreement between the two sides, there's no reason for this to continue, really. Like there's no unless yeah, unless someone takes them as a third hand, it would be completely insane for both sides to continue this. They're both like it's hurting both their economies so much as well. Like it would be absolutely insane. So yeah, hopefully, hopefully we'll just like calm down and like physical out now. They've gone and got what they want from it. But yeah, I don't know, we just don't know what they're talking about, both doors and the border. But I would also say that if it does kick off again, everyone wants to jump over to my Twitter because I'm already doing a goal fund me to get PPE for journalists covering the conflict. So if I have to again, please jump over and help out with that. But I think yeah, hopefully it comes. Yeah, let's promote that. Definitely. I'm a big advocate of that. I remember I had to bring a fucking helmet all the way from England to to Artsac just to get this like one of the best reporters there, helmet. Like it's crazy how hard it is for some people in certain regions to get any like PPE. Yeah, there's a lot of restrictions on like bringing them into certain countries, even hands it in through others. And then even though this, this is a region that's a lot of conflict, it's been quieter for 30 years. And so like I actually just try to access some is tough. And then the stuff that you do get is like it's terrible as well. It's like a really big concern. Like around the world, there's something that people don't think about is like when this kicks off out of nowhere, like journalists especially do not have the kit and journalists are often like us are usually the ones stripping enough to just jump out there and go do the job anyway. But it's nuts as well, like we, a friend, a police officer friend, like took us to somewhere where he was like you can get here. It's where we get to get like our extra kit, you know, in the police and stuff. And then the helmets, they were giving us to take the field. You look inside and it says this is a toy. This is not real. You know, playing games do not see this as a special key. Well, sorry, you're telling me this is where the armed forces pick up their stuff too. He's like, oh my god. Crazy. Yeah. No, it's madness. Like it does a lot of places where that happens. You know, I mean, there were like kids on the front line and I mean you're in fucking flip flops and like jackets and the dead of winter because like the government just didn't, you know, just didn't give them anything. It's madness. Yeah, definitely. We'll put the link in the description of this without a doubt. I really love stuff like that. It's so important to do. It's, I don't know, like it's easy for us as Westerners to get that shit, but like you said, it's not so easy for people out there in these other areas. The last thing I want to know, I should have asked this before, but how do people end up in these scam compounds? Like I'm really interested in this. How do they actually end up in there? What's it like in there? It sounds like some kind of feudal nightmare. It's kind of gone back since they're kind of really start kicking off in during COVID when a lot of people couldn't get work anywhere. And so a lot of places were recruiting saying that maybe because Cambodia was less badly hit than its neighbours for a while with COVID. So there were more businesses were open. So it was easier to recruit people from abroad and smuggle them in by saying, you know, they're working bars in casinos and hotels. But people will be told all kinds of different reasons why there were these jobs available. Or sometimes people will be told like if they're IT jobs or all kinds of different things. And normally only once they arrive in Cambodia, they find out what the nature of the job is. And by that point, they're told you've racked up however much debt to your trafficker. And we've paid for you, so you've got to work off that money first anyway. There are people who do know kind of more or maybe suspect more what they're getting themselves into, but they might be completely unprepared for what the conditions are like. Like so many people now have already been sold to one place and that now they've been doing it, maybe they've been so broken down by the situation because the chance of getting released or free to so stem that you kind of end up volunteering to be sold somewhere else because you think the conditions might be better. So you end up just being in this industry forever. But the places do have like they all kind of follow the same blueprint. They all look like prisons. They all normally have they have dormitories on site and offices on site. So you normally have like maybe like six or seven people, six or eight people in dormitories in in one room. They'll go through a different floor for their work. And then you just kind of work six like 12 to 16 hour days as minimum just basically just scouting people online all day. And it's also really common to hear that if you yeah, if you don't hit your targets, you get beaten, you get electrocuted, you get tazed and you get constantly get the threat of being sold somewhere else. So the conditions are absolutely horrific everywhere. Yeah, yeah. And I would say like it's a lot more complex is just like the example I gave up the scam like he says, let's say most people listen and think I was going to fall for that. But they're incredibly complex and like even like airline scams like like like like two almost got me last year but like ones they caught it. But like it's the same with the trafficking. And like so when we were out in Thailand, Myanmar border looking at the human trafficking scam compounds and everyone was saying, we're so aware now. Like we're so aware if someone offers you a waitress and job in the big city, you're probably going to be putting to sex work. Like that knowledge has come in, right? So then they they focus on other parts of the world. But now the way they recruit, they recruit people with PhDs and computer science and they recruit it's for like a tech job in Bangkok. And then so you fly in, maybe you do fly into Bangkok, there's a taxi waiting for you and you get into the car and they're like, oh, hold on to your passport for you. And then they drive you to the border of Cambodia or to Myanmar, cross over at night with like the border guards kind of assuring you over and then you're inside this prison and you can be there for years potentially. And then for the people like I arrive in Cambodia and like we've actually witnessed this where they were on a plane. It seems like they're going for a legit job. It could be from India, it could be from some bad way China anywhere. We even know some some British and some Americans that have ended up stuck in these scam compounds as well. And they'll arrive in the airport in Pompein and we've seen like just Chinese gangsters like behind immigration, like the like you know like air sites just waiting for them to come off. Grab their passwords off them. I've said to the border officials, you know, these guys are getting traffic. He's just push me back. And then they just get bundled out into these vans. And if you actually go into the compounds themselves, if you've been able to do when they get ready briefly before they open up, they're filled like motivational quotes on like blackboards. They do motivational like kung fu dances and like songs. It's like a kind of wolf of Wall Street kind of vibe, but a lot, lot sadder. Yeah, it's just insane. And the government is doing or is aware or is like what what is that role? Well, the government in Cambodia, especially have been implicated, I don't think I would carefully work, implicated massively, I see these international reports. We've been looking at this for years. It's not so much the turn of blind eye. It's the actively run, I don't know, involved in the like senior running of this criminal trade. So the point there was a there's a platform called Yon Pay, which has just been labeled by the US government as an instrumental in money laundering. And it's like basically blacklisted from their financial systems. The reason that happened is it had been found to be laundering money for the North Koreans, right? Like a few billion at the did on that crypto heist. And then that got into spotlight. But what they've actually done is they made their fortune from building up money laundering and crypto payment schemes all around scam compounds. And now they're like run through money for the you know, the drug arc tales in Latin America as well as the Chinese organized crime groups here. And it's the biggest ever illicit criminal marketplace. There's ever been like like dwarfs, a silk road by tens of billions. And that is run or that was formally run. One of the former directors of that company, officially was the current Prime Minister's cousin and if they see a previous Prime Minister's son. So yeah, I mean, so there's like, yeah, a lot of the close family members or they're very close associates to the overwhelming family are implicated in the scam trade. It's kind of like it's a bit of a weird situation because like the people who there's a separation between the people who build and own the scam compounds, which are clearly built for this purpose, but they sublet the space inside to all these different companies. So they always have a level of separation where it's like, well, we're not running the scams. We just own the building, but it's like well, you own a building that you've built to be a prison with one exit and it's surrounded by curiosity, right? So you clearly know what's going on. But like the government and like it's basically every the all of the kind of senior people at the top of the tree here are very senior senators or close aides of the of their ruling family or in the ruling family. So yeah, there's more than any other country, I think, it's the capacity is so much higher here. And I think Lindsay mentioned earlier, some of the security is directly done inside these compounds by police and military units that aren't just doing this behind their bosses back. They're like hired by their boss to go and do this and bring their official official weapons. And we know that there's actually been almost gun fights between different military units who are collecting human trafficking victims, one to the other and saying who owes each other money. So it's completely complicit in that way, but also in fairness to Cambodia, and in fairness to any official who does end up kind of dirty by this, there's now so much of a fabric of the economy of the country that if you ripped it away, this country would just fall apart if it was overnight. It's too reliant on that money and it is incredibly difficult for anyone to actually like keep away from it. Like we say, like a narcole state, it kind of is a becoming a scam a scam state. That's crazy, man. And so they're just kind of in there just typing all day like hi sir, Oscar died and he wants to give you 50 million or whatever. That's literally just in there doing that shit. It's actually like even so they're so professionalized these businesses now that you actually kind of break up the roles. So you've got people who like the newbies in and who are often just like tasked with finding new potential victims online or like starting the conversations. Then once they're hooked they go up for someone who's a next line who's like the next chain who might be a little bit more experienced and they try and build a relationship with that person. Quite often it's a separate two parts to it. So someone builds a relationship with someone that they think is like, yeah, they're partner online. And then they'll subtly be like, oh, you know, I make all my money out of this investment thing if you know if you wanted to use it. But I can show you how to use it if you want. And then there's somebody else who pretends to be who worked for that company, who they get passed on to. And then there'll be someone else who works for that fake investment company who like puts more pressure on them when they start to lose money to like keep investing and not give up basically. And then often you'll have very often you'll have at least one model who works in that building who's on call to do all of the video calls with all of the people calling in. And you have now now I've seen more and more job of job ads that call for AI models and real models in the same building. Real models of models who show their real faces. AI models basically have a different person's face mapped onto their face while using AI while they're doing all their calls so that it can it can it can. It can look like a real person's profile that they're pretending to be. So like it's like insane the level of technology that's going to be used and also the professionalism of these things. And then there's an entire entire giant like feeder industry of of fake payment platforms and and like a crypto wallet like that and stuff and like and different like money laundering schemes all used to help move the money away from that as well. So there's just like so many feeder industries as well all around again. And there's like it's become like this like obviously it's becoming like I almost like a chamber of commerce for different organized crime groups in Cambodia now because that money is so big and they don't need to fight over it. So you've got the old yakuza guys that are finding it more difficult to operate in Japan. You've got a Chinese triad who maybe have a warning for them or been told to leave China and you've got like Indonesian gangsters, Thai gangsters, Cambodian gangsters all just congregated or all just working together. So you've got triad and and the yakuza run scam compounds usually Chinese are the bosses of bosses but they run them together and then they also then like adjacent drug operations together. And it's like becoming like it's just it's just so much a fabric of like the the economy here and it's also like there's a legs organized ones. There's guys who just come here to do it for a few months to come and scam who are completely willing. I was like I I met a bar one night who's from Algeria and he was working on a scam compound in Turkey and they have telegram chats and say oh if you really want to make some money and don't want to get arrested you should go to Cambodia for a few months and then he's jumped over here, I don't know if I'll do it for four months, get some money and then he'll head off to like maybe Georgia which is another hub. So it's this whole massive global industry over what you think is maybe like just an AI that's texting you and there's just so much so much happening behind it. It's mad in it like we are going to get when we're old we're just like I'm going to end up with nothing man, I'm just going to get scammed. It's sort by some like fucking hologram with like it's like next level you know like the way it went from like you know oh hi I'm like the son of the Congolese king. I can give you a million if you give me your bank details to like oh here's a fucking AI version that I can literally video call you and trick you like it's unbelievable. I don't know why I was maybe naively just thought surely there's not that much money in like doing these ridiculous like long-winded scams but I mean I guess if you got a whole fucking well of people doing it 24/7 like also just the scale like just like the um like the actual um the the sophistication of the scams as well means that often they will work it so that you start asking them questions about like why is your lifestyle so good can I get involved in your investment platform and they're like no and they make you want it or they actually just find people who are already liking crypto currency sites like they are pages on Facebook or websites and they contact you saying are you're interested in crypto investments or any people sitting there wanting to invest what want to do something and the reason they can take all your money is because they'll originally they'll initially give you payments so if you put a few hundred quid then they'll give you a few hundred quid profit and they'll keep doing that until eventually you site you go for the big score and then you put in all your life savings and then they say you need to pay this tax fee to get that money out and then your re-mortgage in the house then your bottle and money and then people are just ruined forever but you can see how it can happen to really intelligent people who are at could be any age as well it's not just your old granny but the risk the risk is so low for these people because if you're in a country where you've got protection for your for your compound right and you're not going to get arrested in order to in order to scam somebody if you're scamming someone in Germany from Cambodia right you don't have to physically go to Germany you just send anything to Germany there's no there's no kind of like there's something that's going to get disrupted on the way right so your overheads are so low and your risks are so low compared to your reward and even all of the people that you buy or recruit or whatever to be in your compound if they don't do well enough you can sell them somewhere else and often there's been situations as well like women and girls especially end up being sold into sex work if they don't perform well enough there've been a lot of rumors that we've kind of well some reports that we've kind of sort of sound at how true they are about people being sold to be harvested for organs and blood if they don't do well enough but you can always sell that human being so it's like it's it's kind of like the the the profit margins are just so insane in this business to give you a scale that an idea of the profit margins what a lot of people might not have realized but now I say it well is if you watch football look at the front or will now have to the sleeve of of your team shirt and you know it used to be a known brand or like an airline something you would know right but now how often is it x1752.com like some betting website that no one's ever heard of no one ever uses well the majority of them are essentially white labeled scam betting companies that are a front for these exact scam and human trafficking companies operating in Cambodia Myanmar like we've been saying about and some of them like sponsor some of the biggest clubs in England and in Europe and they're openly put their their name on there which helps them clean the image and advertise into China but that is the scale of it they can afford to get the biggest clubs in the world to agree to have their like their name on there. It's all just money in it if you've got money basically anything goes yeah it's dark wow that was absolutely fascinating like I'd just blow my mind it's something I'm really interested in especially when wars break out over like very unusual things which I think you're right I think this this scam stuff is the fact that there's so much money being made it that's just no way it's not gonna end up like that do you know what I mean crazy situation um firstly uh where can people go do you have like a solid link for this uh for this trying to help reporters get the the protective gear or is it like some long thing yeah it's like it's like just a go for me that I'll I'll share with you all right I'll put it in the description because you know reading it all out would take from where can people get older your work look what you're doing because I think it's it's it's man very unique like it's very it's kind of the shit like this is why I kind of started popular from because there's so much more going on out there at war than just the war you know like it just encompasses every little weird thing you can think of yeah so yeah you can find like we can we look at it kind of like wakes between conflict organized crime and corruption uh so we release reports uh with the eyewitness project so you can let them up I witnessed they at the eyewitnessproject.com and I'm on twitter at dot dot org here uh and I'm on twitter at Nathan P southern and you're at lens a Kennedy amazing thanks for coming back on I really appreciate it yeah cheers man thanks for having us that was the popular front podcast if you want more exclusive bonus episodes extra video content access to the popular front network add free episodes and other patreon only shows that we do subscribe to patreon.com/popularfront we are entirely grassroots and independent nobody owns us patreon keeps us going as does our merchandise you can get popular front apparel and accessories at www.popularfront.shop you can also buy our various publications there like the popular front magazine which comes out four times a year we are censored on social media and streaming platforms so please follow and share our content watch our documentaries at youtube.com/popularfront follow us on instagram at popular.front twitter at popular front underscore and for uncensored updates on the world of war follow our telegram at popular x front if you want to keep track of my other projects it's the same on all socials at jake_hannerhan that's h-a-n-a-h-a-n for all these links and more go to www.popularfront.cc the music in this episode was produced by sam black check him out at samblackpf.com or search samblackpf on Spotify the intro music is by home if you want to advertise with us and you know literally evil email [email protected] thank you to the patreon's on the credit tier they are oscar swijoniski Joel ansbro Alexander eska supernichi Nicholas starbrost niacos lukey psycho pengu jessica hot local dad peter cherry viola for veil christian vastamante vs brayan r heavenpank Benjamin topper cedartha o Cameron Collins choosing at eight k nthg gabriel k david mcmanus james leons rendon crave robert oshay Dallas done LD50 seattle b rambo lasan 8669 evan julienne diamondstein Michael o'connor Nicholas butter jd danny boy james karpinski jav james cully ethan fits Madrid dsan leon williams dz a georjo arani vegan straightedge sam bramsey kaolin wix michael neck freya northman bramma klocklin tom lockrin yung wasabi toney bin adam burge Schneider jl bradley davies steven de veela christopher s martin rian sandercock amorets zumbu thank you all so much for your support please keep it all moving supporters patreon.com/popularfront we'll get the merch popularfront.show [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]