Busting the Hard Boiled

When military police were ordered to raid a Phnom Penh office suspected of harboring an illegal phone scam last Tuesday, officers figured it was probably just another instance of small-scale Cambodian corruption. But what they found was pricey, high-tech telecommunications equipmentand evidence that boiler-room scams may have spread to Cambodia under the guise of supposedly charitable nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Police detained 20 foreigners in the raid, including 14 Britons, who remain under guard in a Phnom Penh hotel. According to officials, the group allegedly set up an illegal telephone network and had made nearly $30,000 worth of essentially free international calls...

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