Police are set to send three Chinese men to the municipal court for confining 99 Thai nationals to extort money from them after the victims were cheated by an employment broker who told them that they were going to work for a Chinese online sales company in Phnom Penh’s Sen Sok district.

National Police spokesman Chhay Kim Khoeun told The Post on November 21 that the three Chinese suspects were arrested on November 18 and were among a total of 77 Chinese nationals who had been questioned by the police.

“Our officers finished the procedures this evening [November 21],” he said.

Kim Khoeun added that On November 18, the National Police conducted a raid on a house in Sen Sok district being rented by a group of Chinese nationals where they discovered and liberated 99 Thai nationals who were being held prisoner and extorted.

The 99 Thai victims were taken into custody by Cambodian immigration police officers for deportation to Thailand as they were all in Cambodia illegally.

The operation involved the questioning of 77 Chinese nationals but only three of them were determined to be involved with the extortion scheme.

The other 74 Chinese nationals were not involved in any crimes and had come to work in Cambodia legally, prompting the authorities to allow them to return to work as normal, he said.

Minister of Information Khieu Kanharith pointed out the irony of the situation as in the past many Cambodian people had been cheated by brokers when trying to work illegally in Thailand and now the same thing was happening to Thai people induced to come and work in Cambodia illegally.

“The Cambodian police have liberated 99 Thai people who were smuggled into Cambodia to work and were then confined to a building,” he said.

A municipal court spokesman said on November 22 that no charges had been decided yet for the three alleged Chinese human traffickers.