It’s 1 a.m. in Poipet, a Cambodian town on the Thai border where the economy runs on casinos, illegal online gambling, and the now-notorious “pig-butchering” scams that use forced and trafficked labor to reel in victims worldwide. The town’s clubs and karaoke bars are awash with cocky Chinese gangsters splashing their cash on expensive liquor and bags of meth, which is sold openly by bartenders hovering by the bathrooms.
But at the outdoor tables of a tiny bar by the night market, overshadowed by an under-construction compound that locals say will house yet more Chinese-run scams, four Indonesian members of an online gambling syndicate are keeping a lower profile. Their “boss” is an unassuming, chain-smoking Indonesian man in his 30s with just a smattering of tattoos. But as the empty bottles of Captain Morgan’s rum pile up, his guard falls, and out comes the mafia-don swagger.
