The 60 Chinese and Taiwanese nationals arrested on Monday for involvement in an alleged extortion racket had posed as police officers and threatened to have the people they telephoned in China and Taiwan arrested if they did not deposit cash into bank accounts, police said yesterday.

National police spokesman Kirt Chantharith told the Post that the 35 Taiwanese and 25 Chinese nationals “would be deported as soon as possible”.

He said they had extorted millions of dollars from more than 1,000 Chinese nationals by posing as police and threatening to have criminal charges filed against them for tax evasion.

The victims were owners of small and mid-sized businesses, Kirt Chantharith said, adding that tax evasion was commonplace in China.   

The alleged extortionists used internet telephone technology that made their calls from Phnom Penh appear to be coming from police stations in China and Taiwan, he said, adding that they were now in immigration detention.

In June, hundreds of Chinese and Taiwanese nationals were arrested across the region for allegedly extorting money from people in their home countries via telephone scams. Police in several countries in the region had coordinated their investigations.

Kirt Chantharith said that the latest alleged scam was not confined to Cambodia and that similar groups were doing the same from other countries in the region.