Return of 162 Thais Spurs Tighter Controls at Ban Laem Amid Scam Crackdown

A convoy of six Cambodian buses rolled up to Ban Laem checkpoint last Friday, ending an anxious wait for 162 Thais who had been stuck in Siem Reap for weeks. The hand-over was smooth, but the story behind it is tangled in old border rivalries, new cyber-crime rackets and a screening system that now decides who simply strayed across—and who may be wanted back home.

First look: what mattered most

• 162 Thai nationals returned under tight security at Chanthaburi’s Ban Laem border gate.

• Six of them carried outstanding arrest warrants; ninety-two lacked valid exit records.

• Authorities invoked the NRM trafficking protocol to separate possible victims from suspected gang recruits.

• Phnom Penh signalled a second batch of roughly 75 Thais could follow within weeks.

Flashpoint at Ban Laem

The sleepy crossing in Pong Nam Ron suddenly resembled a military staging area when Cambodian soldiers escorted bus after bus to the white line. Rear Admiral Parach Rattanachaiphan confirmed naval rangers, local police and immigration officials were on hand, reflecting Bangkok’s resolve to balance “humanitarian duty and national security.” Early temperature checks, document scans and bag searches were completed in under two hours—remarkably brisk for an operation of this scale.

Who are the 162 returnees?

Thai investigators divided the group into three rough categories: (1) six individuals with court warrants—two tied to online scam syndicates, four in violent-crime cases; (2) ninety-two undocumented travellers who slipped out through unguarded tracks; and (3) sixty-four people who appear to have left legally but overstayed or were caught in the border flare-up. Many said they answered social-media job ads promising call-centre salaries of B40,000-B60,000 a month, only to find themselves coerced into pig-butchering scams that target fellow Thais.

From Siem Reap detention to home soil

Local NGO workers in Siem Reap told the Bangkok Post they noticed the Thais on 28 December after provincial police swept hostels near the famed Angkor ruins. Cambodian officials, under pressure to curb cyber-fraud compounds, opted to house the detainees at a sports arena rather than a jail. Once the Thai Embassy issued emergency travel documents, Phnom Penh green-lit the return. “We wanted them out before the Lunar New Year crowds,” a Cambodian police source said.

Security meets compassion: the screening maze

Back in Chanthaburi, officers ran fingerprints through the Royal Thai Police AFIS system, cross-checked INTERPOL notices, then steered everyone to a field clinic. A joint team from the Ministry of Social Development and the immigration bureau employed the NRM framework—the same protocol used in major trafficking busts. Anxious relatives waited at a fenced-off area, waving Thai flags and holding bottled water. By sundown, most of the 162 were on vans bound for anuban centres where counsellors will decide if they qualify for witness protection, prosecution or a simple warning.

Border tensions—old memories, new realities

Veteran officers still recall the 2008-2011 Preah Vihear firefights, yet Friday’s drama stemmed less from territorial spats than from the border’s role as a high-speed on-ramp for digital crime. Scam compounds have migrated deeper into Cambodia since Thai, Chinese and Myanmar forces raided notorious sites such as KK Park last year. Chanthaburi and Trat now sit on the front line of a quieter but more lucrative conflict: the race to stop billions of baht being siphoned through cloned bank apps and romance cons.

The bigger picture: numbers that worry Bangkok

According to police intel, Thailand lost roughly ฿30 B in 2025 alone to call-centre frauds operating out of Cambodia. Deportations tell a similar story: 119 Thais came back in March 2025, 27 in August, 11 in October, and now 162 in January 2026. Officials estimate as many as 40 % of all illegal Thai border crossers last year were recruited—knowingly or not—by cyber-crime outfits.

What happens next?

Rear Adm Parach says naval patrols will intensify along “every natural route from Ban Pakkad to Had Lek,” aided by drones and thermal sensors. Meanwhile, the Foreign Ministry is nudging Phnom Penh to join a stalled regional anti-scam task force Thailand proposed in December. For families who greeted loved ones at Ban Laem, that diplomacy feels abstract; they are busy arranging hospital visits, legal counsel and, in some cases, funerals for debts gone wrong. The buses have driven off, but the work of untangling each traveller’s past—and preventing the next bus-load—has only begun.