From bachelorette trips to family vacations, group travel can cause relationship-ending fallouts. Here’s how to navigate difficult conversations about finances.

17,031 Bangladeshi migrants travelled to Cambodia for work from June 2023 to July 2026 Originally published on Global Voices The Streets of Phnom Penh. Image via Flickr by ND Strupler . CC BY-2.0 . This report features interviews and infographics by Abdur Rahaman , Atkia Fariha, A. K. M. Hasanat Alimoon , Lamesha Akter, and Shanta Akter for the Data Journalism Course at the University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh. Sajjad Hossain was 23 in 2025, a fresh graduate from Comilla city in eastern Bangladesh, when a job advertisement reached him through a WhatsApp group. It promised data-entry work in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, with a wage several times what he could earn at home, and a middleman handling the visa process. Within one month, he had signed the paperwork, paid roughly BDT 450,000 (USD 3,640), and boarded a flight to Cambodia. Within 48 hours of landing in Phnom Penh , his passport had disappeared into a company safe, and so had the job he had been promised. Hoassain’s fortune-seeking in Cambodia is a textbook example of technology-facilitated trafficking in persons , a crime the United Nations and Amnesty International have taken to calling “cyber slavery.” It is a type of digital recruitment scam. The scam is pretty straightforward: A social media job advertisement draws the victim in, a flight carries them to Cambodia, their passport is seized, and they are sold to a compound, where they are forced to run digital scams against strangers thousands of miles away. Hossain’s experience reflects the reality many other victims face at scam compounds in Cambodia. Technology-facilitated recruitment scams Recent investigations reveal that this three-tiered network has effectively digitized the process of human trafficking behind such recruitment scams. A network of illicit recruiting agencies, complicit travel operators, and middlemen ( dalals ) drives the process. Middlemen embed themselves in the same social networks migrants already trust — Facebook groups, WhatsApp circles, and the instant messaging app imo — and post advertisements that read like any ordinary overseas job. They deliver promises of high-paying jobs and “instant visas.” They even boast Telegram groups featuring “successful migrants” who are actually part of the coordinated fraud ring. “Unfortunately, many migrants go to new countries, falling into the trap of multi-country networks without verifying the operations of recruiting agencies, job contracts, recruiters’ details, or the economic conditions of those destinations and countries,” Riaz Ahmed, an academic researcher and migration specialist, explained during an interview with GlobalVoices via WhatsApp in August. He continued: Reality changes when they step into those lands. Every single promise turns out to be a scam. They have fallen into the trap of global scam networks. “Cambodia is not a genuinely lucrative destination for Bangladeshi workers. It is manufactured by dishonest recruiting agencies promoting supposed high-paid IT-related or hospitality jobs,” said Syed Saiful Haque, Chairman of the WARBE Development Foundation, a migrant-led and community-based non-profit organization. “ Exploitative middlemen, even a few travel agencies, capitalize on this desperation, promoting them as cheap, fast, and easy alternatives to traditional destinations.” Bangladesh has no consular presence in Cambodia, which means every migrant who takes this route does so without an embassy to call if things go wrong. Even so, official figures suggest that 80 percent of returnees originally traveled through legal immigration channels, and 66 percent went through middlemen rather than registered agencies. Location of Cambodia and Bangladesh. Image via Wikipedia by TUBS . CC BY-SA 3.0 . Alarmingly, the gap between what migration is supposed to cost and what it actually costs tells its own story. While official documentation sets migration costs between USD 654 and USD 1,258, actual costs have soared. Aspiring migrants paid brokers between USD 2,835 and USD 4,450 to secure their flights. The average monthly salary for a worker in Bangladesh is estimated at around USD 329 in 2026. This inflated migration cost goes to a network of middlemen, travel agencies, and recruiting agencies who then trap the migrants with false promises of rapid visa processing and lucrative employment in Cambodia. Trapped online, locked inside The compound is where the advertisement’s promises collapse entirely. Passports are confiscated on arrival, and victims describe being priced and traded between operators for sums ranging from USD 1,500 to USD 4,000. One victim, describing his situation in Cambodia, said he had asked his middlemen to extend his expired visa and had been refused, adding that he was now waiting in “a nondescript building to be sold to another company.” Another described being pressured into a scam job: “I proposed taking another job instead of working at a scam center, but the broker refused. He is forcing my family to send more money.” Families report being contacted directly and asked for sums as large as USD 3,000 for a relative’s release, with the threat of repeated resale hanging over any family that cannot pay. A migrant said the broker took USD 3,500 from him and then blocked all contact. Returnees also report episodes of violence, mistreatment, and torture inside the holding facilities. Pramit Khandaker, spokesperson for the volunteer-run Bangladesh Probashi Oikko Foundation , highlighted the agony of families with sons trapped in these scams in a WhatsApp interview. “ Many have lost their family’s entire savings already. Nothing remains in their hands to rescue their sons.” He added that while some victims want to take action against those who trafficked them, they rarely have enough evidence to file a case: Many come to us for legal support with a hope to complain against these middlemen and travel agencies who staged such traps. Unfortunately, most of them fail to provide the supporting documents, the payment histories, [or] transaction receipts to process or to file cases. Exploitation via forced cybercrime Trafficking victims are usually forced to conduct online scam work. These operations run romance scams (also known as pig butchering ), fake investments, and cryptocurrency fraud. This trafficking industry is incredibly large. Inside regional fraud centers, compounds trap thousands of trafficked workers at once, with a 2026 UN report estimating there are at least 300,000 people currently trapped in scam farms globally. The operations look like disciplined call centers on the inside. In reality, they are run with the strict control of a prison. One returnee fell victim to a bait-and-switch scam, applying for a casino job but being forced to trap others online. He spent USD 4,047 and earned just USD 972. Later, his family had to pay an additional USD 1,214 to secure his release and return home. Meanwhile, a nationwide sweep has raided 118 sites in Cambodia and arrested roughly 5,000 people in six months this year. Cambodia endorsed its first dedicated anti-scam law in April, threatening life imprisonment for the worst offenders. However, even as Cambodian officials work to crack down on scam farms, they are also arresting and persecuting journalists who report on the issue. Meanwhile, the syndicate organizers are finding new ways to avoid law enforcement. Large compounds break into smaller cells hidden inside ordinary apartment blocks around Phnom Penh, leaving many trafficked workers stranded during this crisis. The crisis behind the stories According to the Bangladesh Bureau of Manpower, Employment, and Training ( BMET ) data, 17,031 Bangladeshi migrants traveled to Cambodia for work between June 2023 and July 2026. Unfortunately, 98 percent of those who went did not receive the job they were promised. It effectively describes the entire migration corridor as fraudulent by design rather than by exception. In this context, Bangladesh has repatriated 583 trafficked citizens from Cambodia since June 2026, part of roughly 1,800 who have returned home this year after falling victim to cyber fraud. In one case, a returnee had to spend USD 2,266, including penalty fees for overstaying without a visa, to secure his journey back home. Another shared that he pooled money from relatives back home to survive nine idle months before giving up entirely. “There are no working opportunities,” he said upon landing. “Anyone who goes to Cambodia will fall into a trap of criminal syndicates.” Closing the Loop Technology-facilitated recruitment and forced cyber-scamming function as one pipeline; what connects Hossain’s compound to a family’s ransom. It is a continuous mechanism, not two distinct crimes. Around 17,031 Bangladeshis traveling to a country without consular presence in just three years shows a massive blind spot in tracking its own citizens abroad. Hossain was rescued during a raid in Cambodia this year after four months inside the compound. He came home with no savings and significant debt. A debt his family is still repaying. Hundreds of others fell for the same advertisement and took the same flight, only to meet the same fate. This report is based on interviews with five to six returnees from Cambodia who returned to Bangladesh in July 2026. Most requested anonymity to protect their identity. One name used in this article has been changed to protect his identity. Written by Zulker Naeen