PHNOM PENH – A shocking incident occurred in Cambodia which resulted in a Chinese man being held hostage for months.
According to the South China Morning Post, a Chinese man was kidnapped and held captive for months as a “blood slave” in Cambodia after being lured by a fake job offer.
The man, identified only by his surname Li, managed to escape earlier this month with the help of a member of the Sihanoukville town gang who was holding him captive.
He is currently being treated in a hospital and is said to be in stable condition.
Since August 2021, the gang has reportedly taken 27 ounces of blood from the 31-year-old each month. The blood would have been sold to private buyers.
Li’s arms were badly injured and covered in needle sticks when he was taken to hospital last week.
Li, who had worked as a security guard in Shenzhen and Beijing, told reporters that he refused to participate in the gang’s scam scheme and that after learning he was an orphan and could not be used for ransom, they had mutually chosen to call him a “blood slave”.
He said at least 7 other men were being held in the same room as him. Li said the gang took more blood from him than other men because he had a universal O-negative blood type.
He said the person who originally tested his blood joked that his blood type was “pretty valuable”.
He also said that his captors threatened to sell him to illegal organ harvesters if he did not donate his blood to them.
After being lured by the bogus job offer, Li said he was held at gunpoint and taken across the China-Vietnam border, where he was sold for 18,500 dollars to the Cambodian gang that ran the scam.
The Chinese Embassy in Cambodia reportedly asked the Cambodian police to prioritize the case. The embassy also dispatched staff to visit Li in the hospital.
