Football Club Cyber Slavery

2023-09-21

EUROPE - Elite European football has been overrun with advertisements for Asian betting brands in recent years, despite many of these companies being connected to major organised crime figures.

Enabled by a leading European regulator and marketing firms spreading disinformation, many clubs are promoting companies linked to South-East Asia’s cyber scam industry - where the business model is built on human trafficking, modern-day slavery and exploitation of the vulnerable.

Vision of a young man attempting to escape a suspected “cyber slavery” compound in Cambodia has cast a sickening shadow over Manchester City’s historic success last season. Filmed hours after the club won its latest Premier League trophy, it shows a man running for his life from Kim Sa, a compound in a Cambodian bordertown that is one of South East Asia’s hotspots for industrial scale cyber crime and modern-day slavery.

Manchester City sponsor 8XBet has been linked to the compound - which has been described as “the most notorious in Cambodia”. Shockingly, it’s not the town’s only cyber slavery compound - nor its only connection to elite European football.

Team members

Philippe Auclair

Philippe Auclair (UK) is a football writer, broadcaster and investigative journalist.

Jack Kerr

Jack Kerr (Australia) is a data and OSINT journalist.

Steve Menary

Steve Menary is a British journalist specialised in sports.

Supported

€15.000,00 allocated on 12/09/2023

ECB/2023/820

Grant

European Cross-border Grants

ONLINE

“Everyone who hears the name is afraid”, Josimar Football, 15/09/2023.
City of dreams, Josimar Football, 31/08/2023.
Dial 6686 for piracy, Josimar Football, 03/10/2023.
Desperately seeking Mr Li, Josimar Football, 12.10.2023.
Who are ya?, Josimar Football, 16.11.2023.
8XBet’s Duterte connection, Josimar Football, 04/01/2024.

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