SEOUL – South Korean authorities are moving to formally arrest the majority of 64 nationals recently repatriated from Cambodia, where they allegedly worked with online scam syndicates, according to police reports on Monday.

The group of 64 South Koreans had been detained in Cambodia over several months before being flown back to Korea on a chartered flight on Saturday. Upon landing, they were taken into custody as investigators probed whether they participated in scam operations willingly or were coerced into involvement while in Cambodia.

The prevalence of online scams, particularly in Southeast Asia, has surged since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. These scams have created dual victims: individuals forced into fraudulent activities under duress and those defrauded by these schemes. Experts monitoring such crimes report that these scams generate billions of dollars for international criminal networks each year.

The Korean National Police Agency revealed that state prosecutors have petitioned local courts for arrest warrants for 58 of the repatriated individuals, following police recommendations. The accused are suspected of engaging in fraudulent schemes including romance scams, fake investment opportunities, and voice phishing, primarily targeting South Koreans domestically. Court decisions regarding these arrests are anticipated in the upcoming days.

Meanwhile, five individuals have been released from custody, although the police have not provided details on the grounds for their release, citing ongoing investigations.

South Korean police said that four of the 64 returnees told investigators that they were beaten while being held in scam centers in Cambodia against their will.

South Korea faces public calls to take stronger action to protect its nationals from being forced into overseas online scam centers, after one of its nationals was found dead in Cambodia in August. He was reportedly lured by a friend to travel to Cambodia to provide his bank account to be used by a scam organization. Authorities in Cambodia said the 22-year-old university student was tortured.

Estimates from the U.N. and other international agencies say that at least 100,000 people have been trafficked to scam centers in Cambodia, with a similar number in Myanmar and tens of thousands more in other countries.

Officials in Seoul estimate that some 1,000 South Koreans are in scam centers in Cambodia, and last week, South Korean authorities imposed a travel ban on parts of Cambodia and sent a government delegation to Cambodia to discuss joint steps.

Online scam centers were previously concentrated in Southeast Asian countries including Cambodia and Myanmar, with most of the trafficked and other workers coming from Asia. But an Interpol report in June said the past three years have seen victims trafficked to Southeast Asia from distant regions including South America, Western Europe and Eastern Africa and that new centers have been reported in the Middle East, West Africa and Central America.