How Premier League Sponsors Run Human Trafficking Syndicates

World of Crime travelled to the Cambodia-Vietnam border to see how shady corporations, which sponsor star football clubs and players, are fuelled by human trafficking and illegal gambling.

Oct 07, 2024

∙ Paid

By Lindsey Kennedy and Nathan Southern
The casino town of Bavet, nestled on Cambodia’s southeast border with Vietnam, may be the grimmest-looking gangster playground on the planet. Its main casino strip, which stretches a few kilometres in a straight line from the border gate, is no glitzy Las Vegas or Macau.

The road is flanked on each side by shabby guesthouses and gaudy mega-casinos in varying states of disrepair, Most of the real economic activity takes place in the compounds that sprawl out from behind these buildings. Some are physically linked to licensed gambling establishments, others are built as standalone office-dormitory blocks, but all are heavily gated and guarded, with high walls, typically encircled with razor wire, some with caged windows to prevent the workers inside from jumping to their deaths.

An unsettling illustration combining the imagery of illegal gambling and scam compounds with workers chained to desks and a bright, flashy football stadium in the background. The scene shows a dark, shadowy compound where tired workers are chained to computers in a grim environment, monitored by guards. The stadium in the distance contrasts with vibrant lights, cheering crowds, and sports betting ads. The image juxtaposes the luxury and glamor of sports betting with the harsh reality of exploitation and forced labor in these compounds. No text, focusing entirely on the visual contrast.

Suicides are alarmingly frequent here. Bavet is the major regional hub of a brutal human trafficking trade that supplies “online” workers to companies running online gamblin…

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