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.
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.
- Verdacht auf Bandenkriminalität, ballesterer, 01/03/2024.
need resources for your own investigative story?
Journalismfund Europe's flexible grants programmes enable journalists to produce relevant public interest stories with a European mind-set from international, national, and regional perspectives.
support independent cross-border investigative journalism
We rely on your support to continue the work that we do. Make a gift of any amount today.