Her hands touch the scars from electric shocks that have yet to fade.

After a long period of struggling with psychological trauma, the 18-year-old from Luong Hoa Commune in Vinh Long Province in the Mekong Delta applied for a job at a hair salon near her home a week ago.

“I have become so afraid of the promises of ‘easy work, high pay,’” she says. “They were just lies, and were the times I was electrocuted until I passed out because I didn’t deceive enough people.”

In May 2022 Oanh trusted a person she met online, who promised her a desk job with a salary of VND20 million (US$760) per month and required no qualifications. She dropped out of school and, following instructions, headed for the Moc Bai border gate in Tay Ninh in southeastern Vietnam and took a forest path to illegally cross the border.

Once she arrived she was taken to an online scam operation in the port city of Sihanoukville. Her job was to message and lure other Vietnamese to come work or trick them into clicking deceitful links to steal from their bank accounts. If she failed to scam the targeted number of victims, she was tortured and starved.

Eventually she was sold twice to other scam operators. “Back then, I thought I would die in a foreign land,” she recalls.

After 50 days in “hell,” Oanh was ransomed by her family for US$3,500. But that was just the beginning of another battle: fighting the psychological scars.

In the first few months after returning home Oanh locked herself in her room, constantly panicking, afraid of strangers, and too scared to use social media. Oanh’s mother, Tuong Vy, 45, recalls that many nights her daughter would deliriously beg “please don’t hit me anymore” or scream “Mom, save me.”

Once she found her asleep at the table from exhaustion, and when she touched her on the shoulder to suggest she should go to bed, Oanh jumped up, went on her knees and pleaded “please forgive me.”

“That was a natural reflex after the brutal beatings that nearly killed me,” Oanh says.

She remembers the times she was beaten for being asleep after working for 16 hours. Her manager would drag her into a room and torture her for being “lazy” and as a lesson for others.

In Oanh’s mind, the place she was held was a high-rise building with concrete walls three to four meters high with barbed wire and shards of glass in top. To enter the building, one had to go through three iron gates, and guards with guns and batons and surveillance cameras were always around.

She was locked in a room with up to 10 other women, and all the windows were barred to prevent escape.

“At that place, I was like a prisoner,” Oanh says. “If you didn’t listen or meet your quota, you’d be tortured.”

The two main forms of torture were beatings and electric shocks. Anyone who resisted would experience both, followed by starvation.

Three years later, the scars on Oanh’s body—on her thighs, calves, and even her private area—still show signs of electric shocks. Each time her body would cramp and go numb, leaving dark bruises on her skin.

Le Hoang Quoc Cuong, 20, from An Giang in the Mekong Delta was also ransomed back to Vietnam at the same time as Oanh. He took longer to recover mentally after three months of imprisonment and torture.

Cuong had dropped out of school while in fourth grade. In early 2022 he too believed an online friend’s promise of a job in Bavet, Cambodia, with a salary of VND20 million. After working for more than a month and not meeting the targets, Cuong was sold to another company and then to another in Phnom Penh.

Unable to do the job, he called home for help, asking for US$4,000 for his ransom. His family had earlier sent VND160 million, but he wasn’t released, forcing them to turn to the police and rescue teams.

He was rescued in June 2022.

“It was only when I returned to Vietnam and reunited with my family that I truly believed I was still alive,” Cuong says.

Le Hoang Quoc Cuong (C) was rescued from a scam operation in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, in June 2022. Photo courtesy of Le Van Phong

Upon returning, Cuong became withdrawn, rarely speaking and never sharing the horrors he went through, fearing it would upset his family. For a year after his rescue he stayed at home, refusing to meet with friends.

Cuong considers himself “lucky” because he was only beaten and electrocuted. His bigger trauma was witnessing what others endured. “Many people I saw had their arms and legs broken, even skulls cracked,” Cuong says. “Some lost their sanity if they tried to escape.”

That was why he never dared to run.

Sounds still scare him, and he flinches at loud noises even when sleeping. He is haunted by the screams and cries for help of those dragged into the torture rooms. “I never saw their faces, but the screams and sounds of electric batons still haunt me three years later,” he says.

A year after returning he asked to return to work at the seafood processing company with his parents. The work is arduous, but he finds peace there.

Recently he began using social media again, but occasionally receives calls inviting him back to Cambodia with promises of no violence. Each time he blocks the number.

Seeing the images in the media about “hell” scam operation centers in Cambodia, Cuong shudders, saying, “The reality is much worse.”

He feels fortunate to have returned, while many others only make it back in an urn. “It will probably take many more years for me to be at peace, for me to no longer dream of those voices begging for mercy,” he says.

Oanh and Cuong are two of 80 people rescued by 31-year-old Le Van Phong of Ho Chi Minh City.

Phong has been saving Vietnamese victims from Cambodia’s scam networks since the Covid-19 pandemic ended, often traveling to make vlogs about Vietnamese communities in Cambodia, gaining extensive knowledge of the area, and receiving distress calls from many families with loved ones caught in scammers’ clutches.

Phong says between 2015 and 2019 some 30-40 casinos operated along the Moc Bai border. After the pandemic they morphed into “scam factories,” often run by Chinese owners who lured, detained and forced Vietnamese people to do their dirty work.

Phong says rescuing people is becoming more difficult and dangerous due to the increasing vigilance of the criminal groups.

Every rescue operation begins with information provided by the victims, who have to negotiate the “contract compensation” amounts, ranging from hundreds to thousands of dollars, which their families must pay.

Based on his experience of rescue operations, Phong has identified three hot spots where tens of thousands of workers are detained: Bavet (near the Moc Bai border gate), Osamach (in Oddar Meanchey Province, near the Cambodia-Thai border) and Sihanoukville (a southern seaport).

Most victims are aged 16 to 25, come from poor backgrounds and unstable families and have low education.

Many victims return in a state of panic, insomnia and psychosis from torture or witnessing abuse. Phong receives around 30 rescue requests a day now.

“The criminals constantly change their tactics, and are now luring victims with promises of love, livestreams, games, or online investments,” he says. “They use softer, slower approaches to get victims to lower their guard.”

The United Nations estimates that hundreds of thousands of people in Southeast Asia are trafficked and forced to work in online scam centers. In 2023 it said in a report that these networks generate billions of dollars annually.

The Cambodian police think nearly 600,000 Vietnamese have lost money to scammers. They also note that the number of Vietnamese going to Cambodia for “easy, high-paying jobs” is increasing, including minors and people with criminal records.

For Oanh and Cuong, though they are fortunate to have been rescued, the battle with the haunting memories of the past continues.

“There is no such thing as ‘easy, high-paying jobs,’” Cuong says. “Every mistake comes with a price, and I’m trying to fix the impulsive decisions I made,” he adds, referring to the scam he fell for.