Analysis Thai and Cambodian tensions relating to issues including cybersecurity concerns boiled over into a kinetic skirmish at the border last week.

The conflict started largely as an extension of a decades-old dispute over access to an ancient Hindu temple located a couple of hundred meters on the Cambodian side of the border.

Tensions at the temple were already high. In May, Thai and Cambodian troops exchanged fire across the border near the site. One Cambodian soldier died as a result.

Thailand’s retaliation included a threat to cut off electricity and internet services to Cambodia, ostensibly to make life hard for the cyber-slave camps in the country – some of which are not far from the temple.

That Cambodia hosts slave camps is not in dispute. As documented by Interpol, criminals advertise well-paid jobs in Asia, and those who travel to take them up are often enslaved in camps and forced to spend their days running romance and investment scams. The United Nations thinks over 100,000 people may toil in such camps, which human rights group Amnesty International describes as “hellish scamming compounds” that operate “with the apparent consent of the Cambodian government.”

The US agrees with that assessment and last year sanctioned a Cambodian senator for his role in human rights abuses at scam camps.

Thailand has tried to crack down on the camps, and repatriate victims who work there. China has helped those efforts because the scam camps often target citizens of the Middle Kingdom or are run by Chinese crime gangs.

Thailand’s threat to cut off internet access and electricity therefore aligned with its wider foreign policy to disrupt the camps.

Analysts feel that action also helped to increase tensions.

“While not a direct trigger, Thailand’s parallel efforts to counter transnational cyber-scam activities operating near the border may have contributed to the broader strategic environment in which this conflict escalated,” according to Angela Suriyasenee, a researcher at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) think tank. “These efforts may have contributed to a broader climate of mistrust and friction between the two governments.”

Adam Rousselle, Principal Analyst at Between the Lines Research, has a similar opinion. “Along this stretch of frontier, Chinese-run scam centers and the illicit capital they generate form part of the conflict’s backdrop – and while it’s too early to call them the driving force, their weight is too significant to ignore,” he wrote last week.

Cambodia’s opposition leader in exile, Sam Rainsy, has accused Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen of profiting from the camps.

In a Facebook post, Rainsy rated the camps the number one obstacle to settling the Thai-Cambodian dispute.

“Hun Sen is angry because those criminals are the ones who feed him and his regime,” he wrote.

“There are genuine concerns that elements within the [Cambodian] establishment may tolerate or indirectly benefit from certain activities, allowing these networks to persist unchecked,” ASPI’s Suriyasenee told The Register.

“It’s important to keep in mind that these allegations of elite-level involvement are still under active investigation and should be addressed through transparent legal processes,” she added, before pointing out that scam camps are big business in Cambodia.

“To put this into context, the scam center industry in Cambodia is estimated to generate over $12.5 billion annually – in other words, around half the country’s GDP,” she said.

Thailand and Cambodia agreed to a cease fire, but not before more than 30 people were killed and tens of thousands evacuated the area to avoid the conflict.

If cyber-scams played any part in this conflict, they therefore caused fatalities and additional human misery on top of the cruel hoaxes camp operators perpetrate every day.

One last observation: social media is used to perpetrate many of these foul schemes. And as usual, social media companies promise to do better and wring their hands – which now bear blood from an armed conflict between nations. ®