Bangla Press Desk: Nearly a year ago, Zahidul Islam left Feni for Cambodia believing he was going to change his life.
He paid Tk 600,000 to a man named only as Himel to arrange the journey.
Instead, he says, he ended up working for two months inside a scam centre, one of the compounds that have become notorious across parts of Southeast Asia for forcing migrant workers into online fraud.
For the rest of his time in Cambodia, Zahidul had no work.
Eventually he applied to return home, collected wages he was owed and bought a ticket to Bangladesh for Sept 3.
That day, he reached immigration at Phnom Penh airport. His wife Suma Akter spoke to him from Dhaka.
It was the last time she heard his voice.
Suma told bdnews24.com she has had no direct contact with her husband since.
Through intermediaries, she has been told Zahidul is being held “somewhere” with 31 other Bangladeshis.
She does not know when he will be released, where exactly he is being held, or when he might be allowed to fly home.
Her days now pass in uncertainty.
A New Face of Trafficking
Bangladesh has long struggled with irregular migration and human trafficking.
But in recent years, scam centres in Cambodia, Vietnam, and Myanmar have added a new and particularly brutal dimension.
Victims are recruited with promises of jobs abroad, only to be handed over -- sometimes literally “sold”, according to returnees -- to other criminal networks.
They are then confined to compounds where they are ordered to make contact with strangers online and trick them out of money.
Those who refuse can be beaten, threatened or denied wages.
Some say they have been forced to call relatives in Bangladesh and ask for money before they are allowed to leave.
Others say they have had to pay for their own release.
Shawon, identified only with a single name, from Kaliganj in Gazipur, was also supposed to return to Bangladesh on Sept 3.
He never made it home.
His mother Asma Begum said he had travelled to Cambodia in April 2025 after being promised a job as a computer operator.
The trip cost Tk 550,000.
The man who sent him, she said, is called Shanto and also lives in Cambodia. Shanto’s aunt lives in Kaliganj.
“My son went there and did not even get proper work,” Asma told bdnews24.com. “He could not send money home either.”
Instead, she said, the family was pressured into sending another Tk 95,000 to help him get out of the scam centre.
Shawon was due back on Sept 3.
On Sept 4, he called for what would become the last time.
“We are at immigration. We are in the custody of immigration police,” Asma recalled him saying. “We don’t know when they will give us a flight.”
Since then, Shawon’s phone has been switched off.
So has Shanto’s.
“We cannot reach anyone,” Asma said.
Tickets Bought, But No Homecoming
In June, Cambodia offered foreigners who had overstayed their visas a chance to leave voluntarily without paying fines.
That opened a route home for hundreds of Bangladeshis. In June alone, 583 returned.
At the request of the Bangladesh embassy in Bangkok, Cambodia later extended the fine-free departure period until Sept 1.
Another 38 Bangladeshis returned on Sept 3.
But 32 others who had bought tickets for a flight home that same day never boarded.
They were turned back from Phnom Penh airport while waiting for immigration clearance and were later taken to a Cambodian immigration detention centre.
bdnews24.com spoke to relatives of several of those detained.
Some families have been unable to contact them at all.
Others do not even know precisely where they are being held.
Zahir Imam, first secretary for labour at the Bangladesh embassy in Bangkok, said the embassy had “spoken to the highest authorities in Cambodia so that arrangements can be made to send the 32 people home quickly”.
“They are being held at an immigration detention centre. They are not allowed to use phones there, so they cannot contact their families.”
The embassy, he said, had arranged through a local representative to send them food and was continuing efforts to reach them.
1,796 Still Unable to Return
The problem goes far beyond the 32 now in detention.
At least 1,796 Bangladeshis who had registered their names with the embassy in Bangkok during Cambodia’s return window remain stranded there.
Most had wanted to return within the deadline set by the Cambodian government.
Many had been forced to work in scam centres, according to people involved in assisting them.
Some had entered Cambodia with valid documents and clearance from Bangladesh’s Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training (BMET), yet still ended up trapped in scam compounds.
Following embassy instructions, many bought refundable air tickets while waiting to come home.
They are now being told to seek refunds.
That has raised new questions:
•Why were so many unable to leave despite registering to return?
•Will they receive the full cost of their tickets back?
•Was there a failure of diplomatic coordination?
One Dhaka resident from Khilgaon, now stuck in Phnom Penh, had spent months trying to return.
He also contacted bdnews24.com.
After repeated attempts, he said, a broker assured him he would be sent home on Sept 1.
His name was put on the embassy list.
He still did not return.
The man is so frightened inside the scam centre that he is reluctant even to say who took him to Cambodia or exactly how he got there.
An inquiry by bdnews24.com found that he had travelled through a broker.
His wife says the same broker is now preventing him from leaving Cambodia.
Asked why so many people had been unable to return, embassy official Zahir Imam said the cases were complicated.
“The problem is that different kinds of people entered Cambodia in different ways, and they also put their names on this list because they wanted to return home,” he said.
“When the Cambodian authorities interview them, they sometimes find that they entered in a different, irregular way. Then they conduct quite detailed interviews.”
The embassy, he said, was still trying to secure the return of those stranded.
“They simply want to go home.”
Threats Even At Airport
Several Bangladeshis who did manage to return on Sept 3 said members of trafficking networks in Cambodia had tried to obstruct or intimidate them even as they prepared to leave.
Mazharul Islam, from Rampur in Narsingdi’s Itakhola, went to Cambodia on Oct 30 last year through Alif International Agency.
He had been promised work as a computer operator. But only after arriving did he realise the job was inside a scam centre.
When he refused to take part in fraud, he said, he was held in Phnom Penh.
He finally returned to Bangladesh on Sept 3 after 11 months.
Mazhar told bdnews24.com that interference by brokers had delayed his return by another two months.
He alleges they deliberately stalled the process in an attempt to extract more money.
After reaching Bangladesh, he said, his phone was seized by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) at the airport.
He has not yet got it back.
Mazhar says he is preparing to file a police case against those he accuses of trafficking and fraud.
Officials from BRAC’s Migration Programme say returnees have repeatedly described intimidation and pressure from Bangladeshi traffickers operating in Cambodia.
According to their accounts, workers are enticed abroad with promises of high-paying jobs, then forced into online fraud and subjected to both physical and psychological abuse.
16,000 Went in 18 Months
Official figures show the scale of the movement.
BMET data indicate that 15,921 Bangladeshis travelled to Cambodia in search of work over the past 18 months.
Many of the 583 people who returned in June had received BMET clearance before leaving Bangladesh.
Returnees say thousands more remain in Cambodia, either without work or trapped after being deceived.
BRAC’s Migration Programme says recruitment frequently begins with advertisements for jobs such as computer operator, call-centre executive or customer-service worker.
Offers are circulated through fake websites, email, Facebook, WhatsApp, Telegram and other online channels.
Once workers arrive, BRAC officials say, some are held at gunpoint and forced into cyber fraud.
That has prompted uncomfortable questions about how the migration pipeline was allowed to operate on such a scale.
Bangladesh has no embassy in Cambodia.
So how did thousands of workers travel there? Who approved their movement?
How were they cleared at airports? And how did they receive BMET approval?
BRAC Migration Programme officials believe the entire process should be investigated through a separate commission involving the ministries responsible for manpower, home affairs and expatriates’ welfare.
They also argue that law-enforcing agencies should identify and prosecute not only trafficking networks, but anyone who knowingly or voluntarily became involved in criminal scam-centre operations.
Networks Active in Both Countries
One Bangladeshi who recently managed to return home after spending almost four years inside scam centres described to bdnews24.com how the trafficking system works.
Asking not to be named, he said networks operate at both ends.
The Bangladesh side recruits people with promises of legitimate employment and arranges their travel to Cambodia.
“Many people here don’t really understand what they are getting into, so they go,” he said.
“I went in the same way.”
On arrival, he said, another network in Cambodia received the group.
“They handed us over to a Chinese group. Seven of us had travelled together.”
Their passports were taken away. They were then moved into a building operating as a cyber scam centre.
There, he said, they were forced to take part in a range of online crimes: sending phishing links to steal money, using manipulated photographs for blackmail, and setting up honey traps to extract cash from victims.
When they tried to leave, they were told they would have to pay.
“We paid,” he said.
But even then, they were held for another six months.
“They told us that if we revealed what work we had done or where we had done it, there would be retaliation.”
Eventually, he said, they were allowed home on condition that they kept quiet.
Myanmar Cases Show Wider Pattern
Cambodia is not the only destination.
On Jan 22 this year, eight Bangladeshis returned from a cyber scam centre in Myanmar.
Another 18 had returned on Sept 19, 2025.
They too had been lured by promises of well-paid jobs and taken into Myanmar through the Thai border.
Once there, their passports and mobile phones were confiscated and they were forced to take part in cyber fraud, according to accounts from the returnees.
The cases point to a wider regional trafficking economy built around online scam centres — compounds where coerced workers are used to target victims across borders.
Govt Tightens Cambodia Clearance
Asked about the Bangladeshis still stranded, State Minister for Expatriates’ Welfare Nurul Hoque said he did not have information about their situation at that moment, but that the government would investigate.
He said Bangladesh had decided to apply far stricter scrutiny before approving workers for Cambodia in future.
“We have decided that from now on we will verify applications for Cambodia much more carefully and be stricter about granting clearance,” he told bdnews24.com.
“Many people are being forced to work in scam centres after going there. That is why we are taking this step.”
For families such as Suma’s and Asma’s, however, the policy response comes later.
Their husbands and sons have already gone.
They bought tickets home. They reached immigration.
And then, once again, they disappeared from reach.
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