PHNOM PENH, Oct. 21 (Xinhua) -- Authorities in Cambodia on Saturday arrested 41 foreign suspects in five nationalities on suspicion of operating a telecoms scam to extort money from victims in China, a senior immigration police official said.
Lieutenant General Ouk Hai Seila, head of the investigation department of the General Department of Immigration, said that the arrests were made when his forces raided four locations in Southwestern Cambodia's Preah Sihanouk province.
"The suspects include Malaysians, Indonesians, Thais, Vietnamese, and 11 Chinese," he told Xinhua, aading "they used VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol, a type of internet phone service) from Cambodia to threaten and extort money from victims in China."
A number of telephones and laptops were confiscated during the raids, he added.
According to Seila, the gang allegedly contacted victims in China, building up relationships with them before asking them to send nude photographs which they then used those nude pictures to extort money from the victims.
He said the suspects will be deported within a week to their respective birth countries.
