Andi Rianto thought he had hit the jackpot when recruitment agents came to his hometown of Tebing Tinggi, a small city with just over 170,000 residents in Indonesia’s North Sumatra province, and offered him what sounded like a lucrative employment opportunity.
The recruiters were looking for young Indonesian men to work in Cambodia, Rianto told This Week in Asia, and they promised him a salary of US$611 a month working in the country’s hospitality industry – far above the monthly minimum wage in Tebing Tinggi of just US$171.
However, Rianto’s dream of gainful employment in Cambodia soon turned into a nightmare.
Instead of working as a server or bartender as he had expected, he was taken to a shadowy compound in the city of Kampot and forced to work 12 hours per day, six days a week, scamming fellow Indonesians online and pressuring them into transferring millions of Indonesian rupiah to his captors.
“For that, I received just US$100 per month. I finally managed to escape from the scammer compound and I urge all citizens of Indonesia not to travel to Cambodia to work,” he said.
“We are risking our lives. If we come here, we have to be prepared to die. It is better to work in Indonesia, even if the salary is lower. At least we will be safe and healthy, and will be able to be close to our families.”
