In Cambodia, thousands flood out of 'scam compounds' and find increasingly little help

BANGKOK (AP) — One recent night, Youga was grateful when he finally slept in a bed — even though it had neither pillow nor blanket.

For two days, the African man said, he slept on the street after he reached Cambodia's capital, Phnom Penh, following his escape from a scam compound in O'Smach, which borders Thailand in the north. He had only $100 left to his name and wanted to save the money. So the Caritas shelter took him in.

The shelter, the only one of its kind that helps victims escaping from scam compounds, was funded previously by the United States. Today, it is stretched at the seams, working with a third of the staff and a fraction of the budget it previously had as the country faces an unprecedented surge of workers leaving scam compounds.

Now, overwhelmed, the shelter has had to turn away people in need — more than 300 of them. Mark Taylor, who works on human trafficking issues in Cambodia, said: “It's become triage.”

As of last week, the shelter had about 150 people. Many of the newest arrivals were sleeping in a common room and didn’t have more than the clothes on their backs. The shelter didn’t have enough pillows and blankets, said Youga, who spoke on condition that only his first name be used out of fear of his former bosses.

Cambodia is facing an unprecedented flood of workers leaving scam compounds. It comes weeks after the country extradited a suspected kingpin of the scam business who had played a prominent role in Cambodian society to China in January.

In recent years, online-based scams have become endemic to the region in Cambodia, Myanmar, and Laos. Inside these buildings, scammers have built sophisticated operations, utilizing phone booths lined with foam for soundproofing, scripts in multiple languages, and even fake police booths of countries ranging from Brazil to China. In Cambodia, the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights estimated that there were up to 100,000 workers alone in 2023.

After growing international pressure from countries like South Korea, the U.S. and China built up over the past several months, Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Manet announced last month that “combating crime is a deliberate political priority” and specifically named cyberfraud. The Cambodian government said it deported 1,620 foreign nationals from 21 countries linked to scam operations in January.

Compounds have been letting people go en masse in recent days, according to 15 videos and images on social media verified by Amnesty International. The organization also interviewed 35 victims, who described a “chaotic and dangerous” situation in trying to leave, although many noted a lack of involvement from Cambodian authorities in the mass exodus.

The departures from scamming compounds have created a humanitarian crisis on the streets that, activists say, is being ignored by the Cambodian government. Amid scenes of chaos and suffering, thousands of traumatized survivors are being left to fend for themselves with no state support,” Montse Ferrer, regional research director for Amnesty International, said in a statement.

“The Royal Government of Cambodia rejects claims that it is failing trafficking victims or tolerating abuse linked to scam compounds,” said Neth Pheaktra, Minister of Information Cambodia in response to the claims. “All individuals are screened to separate victims from perpetrators, with victims receiving protection, shelter, medical care, and assistance for safe return.”

Li Ling, a rescuer, said she had a list of 223 people, mostly from Uganda and Kenya who had come out from compounds in Cambodia asking for help to get home. She and her partner had spent at least $1000 of their own money to shelter some of the most desperate cases, but cannot sustain that beyond another week.

As of last week, some had gone back to work in the compounds, she added. It was that or face sleeping on the streets.

“When international organizations based in Cambodia are continuing to tell victims to go to their embassies, but the embassies tell us frankly, they don’t have a clear path or process, the responsibility is being shoved back and forth, creating a closed loop with no exit,” she said. “This is not a one-off failure, but a systemic breakdown.”

Those victims waited for hours outside the Phnom Penh office of the International Organization for Migration, a UN agency, she said, but were told the Caritas shelter, which IOM works, with is full.

Youga, from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, said he was beaten often while inside a compound because he refused to work. He was determined to get out and escaped on his own as the mass releases began.

The Associated Press was not able to independently verify all of his journey but saw messages of his pleas for help to IOM. The agency said they could not comment on individual cases.

While the shelter is still operating, of most immediate concern in the coming weeks is the budget for food, Taylor said. “It’s hand to mouth.”

The Caritas shelter received financial support from Winrock International, USAID’s partner in Cambodia, according to Taylor who oversaw the funding. It was due to receive $1.4 million from USAID from September 2023 through the first part of 2026. That source of funding went away after U.S. foreign assistance was suspended and USAID was dismantled in early 2025.

The shelter was also partially funded by IOM, which was largely funded by the U.S. and has also seen its funding cut.

Although many anti-trafficking organizations are registered in Cambodia, the Caritas shelter is the only one who takes in victims of scam compounds in an increasingly repressive environment. Amid government pressure, independent media have shut down, and a prominent journalist — known for reporting on scam compounds — was arrested and detained for a month.

“Given the deeply repressive environment in Cambodia that emerges from the scam industry's role as a dominant source of ruling party elite rent seeking, there are an extremely small number of formal organizations willing to respond to the issue on the ground," said Jacob Daniel Sims, a visiting fellow at the Harvard University Asia Center who has worked in countertrafficking in Cambodia.

Rescuers say many who do not make it to the shelter can end up in immigration detention, stuck and pushed for bribes from officials. Others are now booking hotel rooms in groups if they have the funds. Those with embassies in the country are able to get help, such as Indonesians or Filipinos.

Youga cannot return home. He is from the Banyamulenge ethnic group, which has been the target of attacks by armed groups. Nor does he have an embassy in the region that can assist him.

He was lured into a scam compound in Cambodia in November after his family sent him to neighboring Burundi. He said he wasn't looking for a job, but someone he didn't know messaged him on his phone and then emailed him about a job, all expenses paid. He said no, but the recruiter still went ahead.

Youga said he was a university student before and wanted to continue. For now, he only hopes for a safe place. “I want," he said, "to rebuild my life with dignity.”

FILE - South Koreans, walking in the line at center, who are allegedly involved in online scams in Cambodia, arrive at the Incheon International Airport in Incheon, South Korea, Jan. 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon, File)

FILE - A Thai soldier inspects a work station with wooden phone booths lined with foam for soundproofing, inside a scam compound in O'Smach, Cambodia, Monday, Feb. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit, File)

FILE - A Thai soldier keeps guard outside a scam center in O'Smach, Cambodia, Monday, Feb. 2, 2026, (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit, File)

Youga stands at an undisclosed location in Cambodia, on Jan. 22, 2026. (AP Photo)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Attorney General Pam Bondi launched into a passionate defense of Donald Trump on Wednesday as she tried to turn the page from relentless criticism of the Justice Department’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, repeatedly shouting at Democrats during a combative hearing in which she postured herself as the Republican president's chief protector.

Besieged by questions over Epstein and accusations of a weaponized Justice Department, Bondi aggressively pivoted in an extraordinary speech in which she mocked her Democratic questioners, praised Trump over the performance of the stock market and openly aligned herself as in sync with a president whom she painted as a victim of past impeachments and investigations.

“You sit here and you attack the president and I’m not going to have it," Bondi told lawmakers on the House Judiciary Committee. "I am not going to put up with it.”

With victims of Epstein seated behind her in the hearing room, Bondi forcefully defended the department's handling of the files related to the well-connected financier, an issue that has dogged her tenure. She accused Democrats of using the Epstein files to distract from Trump's successes, even though it was Republicans who initiated the furor over the records and Bondi herself fanned the flames by distributing binders to conservative influencers at the White House last year.

The hearing quickly devolved into a partisan brawl, with Bondi repeatedly lobbing insults at Democrats while insisting she was not “going to get in the gutter” with them. In one particularly fiery exchange, Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland accused Bondi of refusing to answer his questions, prompting the attorney general to call the top Democrat on the committee a “washed-up loser lawyer — not even a lawyer.”

Aiming to help Bondi amid an onslaught of Democratic criticism, Republicans tried to keep the focus on bread-and-butter law enforcement issues like violent crime and illegal immigration. Bondi, for her part, repeatedly deflected questions from Democrats, responding instead with attacks seemingly gleaned from news headlines as she sought to cast them as disinterested in violence in their districts. Democrats grew exasperated as Bondi declined time and again to directly answer.

“This is pathetic. This is pathetic," said Rep. Becca Balint, a Vermont Democrat who tried to ask Bondi about different Trump administration officials revealed to have had ties to Epstein. “I am not asking trick questions here. The American people have a right to know the answers to this."

Bondi has struggled to move past the backlash over the Epstein files since she handed out the binders to a group of social media influencers in February 2025. The binders included no new revelations about Epstein, leading to even more calls from Trump’s base for the files to be released.

In her opening remarks, Bondi told Epstein victims to come forward to law enforcement with any information about their abuse and said she was “deeply sorry” for what they had suffered. She told the survivors that “any accusation of criminal wrongdoing will be taken seriously and investigated.”

But she refused when pressed by Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., to turn and face the Epstein victims in the audience and apologize for what Trump's Justice Department has “put them through." She accused the Democrat of “theatrics.”

Bondi’s appearance on Capitol Hill came a year into her tumultuous tenure, which has amplified concerns that the Justice Department is using its law enforcement powers to target political foes of the president. Just a day earlier, the department sought to secure charges against Democratic lawmakers who produced a video urging military service members not to follow “illegal orders.” But in an extraordinary rebuke of prosecutors, a grand jury in Washington refused to return an indictment.

Turning aside criticism that the Justice Department under her watch has become politicized, Bondi touted the department’s work to reduce violent crime and said she was determined to restore the department to its core missions after what she described as “years of bloated bureaucracy and political weaponization.”

GOP Rep. Jim Jordan praised Bondi for undoing actions under President Joe Biden's Justice Department that Republicans say unfairly targeted conservatives — including Trump, who was charged in two federal criminal cases that were abandoned after his 2024 election victory.

“What a difference a year makes," Jordan said. "Under Attorney General Bondi, the DOJ has returned to its core missions — upholding the rule of law, going after the bad guys and keeping Americans safe."

Democrats, meanwhile, excoriated Bondi over haphazard redactions in the Epstein files that exposed intimate details about victims and included nude photographs. A review by The Associated Press and other news organizations has found countless examples of sloppy, inconsistent or nonexistent redactions that have revealed sensitive private information.

“You’re siding with the perpetrators and you’re ignoring the victims," Raskin told Bondi in his opening statement. “That will be your legacy unless you act quickly to change the course. You're running a massive Epstein cover-up right out of the Department of Justice."

Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican who broke with his party to advance the legislation that forced the released of the Epstein files, also took Bondi to task for the release of victims’ personal information, telling her, “Literally the worst thing you could do to survivors, you did.”

Bondi told Massie that he was only focused on the files because Trump is mentioned in them, calling him a “hypocrite” with “Trump derangement syndrome."

Department officials have said they took pains to protect survivors, but errors were inevitable given the volume of the materials and the speed at which the department had to release them. Bondi told lawmakers that the Justice Department had taken down files when it was made aware that they included victims’ information and said staff had tried to do their "very best in the time frame allotted by the legislation” mandating the release of the files.

After raising the expectations of conservatives with promises of transparency last year, the Justice Department said in July that it had concluded a review and determined that no Epstein “client list” existed and there was no reason to make additional files public. That set off a furor that prompted Congress to pass legislation demanding that the Justice Department release the files.

The acknowledgment that the well-connected Epstein did not have a list of clients to whom underage girls were trafficked represented a public walk-back of a theory that the Trump administration had helped promote when Bondi suggested in a Fox News interview last year that it was sitting on her desk for review. Bondi later said she was referring to the Epstein files in total, not a specific client list.

Attorney General Pam Bondi listens as she testifies before a House Judiciary Committee oversight hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Tom Brenner)

Attorney General Pam Bondi testifies before a House Judiciary Committee oversight hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Attorney General Pam Bondi testifies before a House Judiciary Committee oversight hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026, in Washington, as Jeffrey Epstein survivors, stand left. (AP Photo/Tom Brenner)

Attorney General Pam Bondi arrives to testify before a House Judiciary Committee oversight hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Tom Brenner)

Attorney General Pam Bondi arrives to testify before a House Judiciary Committee oversight hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Tom Brenner)

Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., seated center, speaks as Attorney General Pam Bondi testifies before a House Judiciary Committee oversight hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Tom Brenner)

Attorney General Pam Bondi is sworn in before a House Judiciary Committee oversight hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Tom Brenner)

Attorney General Pam Bondi listens as President Donald Trump speaks at an event on addiction recovery in the Oval Office of the White House, Thursday, Jan. 29, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Allison Robbert)