Jump in number of Indonesians moving to Cambodia for work due to lure of online gambling sector: Official

JAKARTA: More Indonesians are seeking employment in Cambodia’s online gambling industry, amid a six-fold increase in the number of citizens reporting to Indonesia’s embassy in its Indo-China neighbour. 

Data from Indonesia’s foreign ministry found that in 2023, the number of Indonesians voluntarily registering with its embassy in Cambodia jumped by 638 per cent as compared with three years before.

Most of these cases are linked to Indonesians who are believed to be involved in online fraud and gambling activities, said a senior Indonesian official. 

“Based on self-report data at the Indonesian embassy in Phnom Penh, 2,332 Indonesians registered (with the Indonesian embassy in Cambodia) in 2020. This number jumped to 17,212 in 2023,” Director of Indonesian Citizen Protection Judha Nugraha told the media at a press conference in Jakarta on Monday (Dec 16).

The Indonesian Citizen Protection is an agency within Indonesia’s foreign ministry. 

But Judha, however, said that there is still a large unreported number of Indonesians in Cambodia. He told the media that official records show that 123,000 Indonesians had entered Cambodia by September this year – a 32 per cent increase from 2023. Of this, 89,000 of them hold residence permits in the country, according to Cambodia’s immigration data. 

“There is a significant discrepancy between Cambodia’s immigration data, which shows 89,000 Indonesians with residence permits and the data that we have – only 17,212 had registered (with the Indonesian embassy in Cambodia),” the foreign affairs official was quoted as saying by the Jakarta Globe. 

Judha also attributed this to an increasing trend of Indonesian citizens voluntarily seeking employment in the online gambling industry abroad, particularly in Cambodia, as these operators offer lucrative jobs to Indonesians to handle online scams. 

“We see a trend whereby the online fraud industry is normalised to be a new form of livelihood,” he was quoted as saying by Kompas. 

This is not the first time that the Indonesian official had talked about the issue of his countrymen working in Cambodia in the online gambling sector. 

In October, Judha highlighted that the majority of Indonesian citizens willingly chose to work for these online gambling companies in Cambodia. Hence, they cannot be regarded as victims of employment fraud, Tempo had reported then. 

The issue of Indonesian citizens working in the gambling industry had also been highlighted by Coordinating Minister for People’s Empowerment Muhaimin Iskandar, who in November said that he had witnessed first-hand Indonesian citizens working in online gambling companies in Cambodia. 

“Regarding Cambodia, I have seen it myself, so I checked it out there, there are around 100,000 Indonesians who work in Cambodia,” he was quoted as saying by Kompas. 

Meanwhile, news agency Antara reported on Nov 21 that the Indonesian government is working to repatriate its citizens who have fallen victim to trafficking and are being forced to work as online gambling administrators abroad, as confirmed by Deputy Minister for the Protection of Migrant Workers Dzulfikar Ahmadi Tawalla. 

“Most of the reports came (from) Cambodia and Myanmar,” he told the media, assuring that his ministry has been intensively coordinating with the police and the destination countries’ foreign ministries to address the issue. 

Dzulfikar also noted that on average, Indonesian citizens who are involved in online gambling-related jobs abroad had left the country illegally, with the government only discovering about their cases when they sought for help.