Shabani Matani

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246 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Jun 2026 last heard 21 Jun

Shabani Matani’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 1.

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Up First from NPR · Caught in Cambodia’s Scam Machine: Part 1 · 21 Jun 2026 podcast

Frontline scammers like Schweib, they're managed by their team leaders, who are their direct bosses.

Then they have to report up to managers, who in turn report to the head of a department.

Then there's an HR department which handles recruitment, PR division that handles ads.

Those are just the departments inside the compound itself.

Outside, there's a whole infrastructure to protect and serve the criminal enterprise.

There are drivers who bring migrants like Schweib over to the compound.

Fruit vendors and drink sellers who move to the streets around the compounds, hoping to cash in.

There are the security guards who keep watch.

And then the land itself, that is owned and controlled by tycoons close to the Cambodian government.

They profit off the compounds on their land.

My sources on the ground, they told me that it's the landlords who maintain a relationship with the police, who tip them off to raids, and who keep them protected.

In July of 2025, about five months after Schweib arrived in the scam compound, Thailand started attacking Cambodia.

The two countries do have longstanding border disputes.

But later, Thai officials claimed they were targeting centers of human trafficking and the scam industry itself.

Thais on social media even coined a new term, Scambodia.

But Cambodia said Thailand's claim that it was waging a war against this, quote, scam army was just a pretext to gain control of their territory.

Tensions have continued to simmer, though there's a tentative peace deal now.

Though Shoaib was far from Thailand, his bosses were getting nervous.

Because these clashes near the border prompted Cambodia to announce they were cracking down on the industry.

So Shoaib's bosses started shifting him and the other workers around, moving them to new, more isolated compounds.

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