Cambodia human trafficking job scam backlash for China’s 58.com
- Man responded to an advert on 58.com for work as a nightclub bouncer but was smuggled to Cambodia where his captors extracted dangerous amounts of blood
- China’s equivalent of Craigslist said it had ‘not yet established’ if the fraudulent advert had been on its platform but would cooperate with Cambodian police
Chinese online classifieds platform 58.com has come under heavy criticism in China after a Chinese national said he was tricked by one of its job advertisements to become the victim of a human trafficking ring in Cambodia.
The company, China’s equivalent of Craigslist, told state media on Thursday it would cooperate with a police investigation in Cambodia although it had “not yet established” whether the fraudulent job advert had been on its platform.
On Thursday, the South China Morning Post published an interview with the man who said he had been trafficked last June after going to the southwestern region of Guangxi in response to a job advert on 58.com for work as a nightclub bouncer.
He said he was smuggled to the Cambodian coastal city of Sihanoukville by a criminal gang and later forced to work for various telemarketing fraud schemes. In September, his captors began carrying out repeated extractions of blood from him after he refused to work, which put his life in danger.
The Chinese embassy in Cambodia on Thursday in a statement gave his surname as Li and confirmed parts of his story, but did not mention 58.com.
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“The Chinese embassy in Cambodia once again reminds Chinese citizens who want to work in Cambodia to follow formal channels and not to believe in false adverts for high-paying jobs,” the statement said.