Good morning. Foreign laborers being held against their will in Cambodia to run online scams were forced to keep working even as Thai military attacks on the disputed border area intensified this month, according to witnesses and videos.

The footage viewed by The Wall Street Journal and accounts from workers illustrate the heightened threat from a conflict that has shown no signs of abating since a cease-fire brokered by President Trump broke down on Dec. 8.

• Scam centers: An estimated 150,000 people, mostly from other Asian and African countries, have been trafficked to Cambodian scam dens by criminal gangs, often under the ruse of employment in lucrative tech or call-center jobs, according to rights groups and cybercrime researchers. Many of these laborers have been held captive in sprawling compounds on the border with Thailand, where, under the threat of physical punishment, they are forced to deliver on online romance, investment and other scams that target victims in the U.S. and elsewhere.
   
• Thai attacks: On Dec. 8 and over the following days, the Thai military used heavy artillery to shell two hotel and casino complexes near the Cambodian town of O’Smach, part of a broader operation that has targeted alleged scam compounds on the border. The Thai military says the buildings had been taken over by Cambodian forces to store and launch weapons—a claim that Cambodian officials deny.
   
• One O’Smach casino resort: It was placed under sanctions by the U.S. Treasury Department in September 2024 for its “role in serious human rights abuse related to the treatment of trafficked workers subjected to forced labor in online scam centers.” The Treasury said at the time that the resort was owned by Cambodian senator and tycoon Ly Yong Phat. Ly Yong Phat, who couldn’t be reached Tuesday, hasn’t publicly commented on the U.S. sanctions. The Cambodian foreign ministry at the time said the sanctions were politically motivated and based on unconfirmed reports of forced labor.

Please note: The Morning Risk Report is taking a break for the holidays and will return Jan. 2. See you in the new year!

SEC plans no enforcement action in FCPA probe against Calavo Growers. 

Calavo Growers said it likely won’t face any regulatory action related to an investigation into potential foreign-bribery matters.

Calavo on Tuesday said it was notified that the Securities and Exchange Commission’s staff has completed its investigation related to the Santa Paula, Calif., company and doesn’t plan to recommend an enforcement action.

Syria sanctions reserved for ‘worst of the worst,’ says OFAC.

Syria-related sanctions now only remain on “the worst of the worst,” the U.S. Treasury Department said Tuesday in an advisory note on export control and sanctions relief for the country, Risk Journal reports.

OFAC said that while most items included on the U.S. Commerce Department’s control list will still require an export control license, that won’t include most basic civilian-use U.S. origin goods, software or technology.

• The estate of the late billionaire Robert Brockman has reached an agreement to pay $750 million in back taxes and penalties, settling a civil suit that stemmed from what the government had called the biggest U.S. tax-fraud case ever filed involving an individual, according to a U.S. Tax Court filing Tuesday.
   
• General Motors and federal auto regulators are probing the crash of a pickup that injured a passenger after its air bag ruptured.
   
• A Baltimore city jury ordered Johnson & Johnson to pay over $1.5 billion in a lawsuit that alleged the company’s talc-based personal products gave a Maryland woman cancer.
   
• A man who had once been known for performing stunts around Paris on his motorbike is suspected of being one of four who robbed the Louvre Museum.
   
• The Justice Department released a second trove of files related to the late Jeffrey Epstein, including a letter mailed to fellow sex offender Larry Nassar and a fake video that purported to show Epstein’s suicide.
   
• The Italian Competition Authority said it ordered WhatsApp owner Meta Platforms to suspend a policy that excludes rival artificial-intelligence chatbots from the messaging platform.

U.S. moves troops and additional special operations aircraft into Caribbean.

The U.S. moved large numbers of special-operations aircraft, troops and equipment into the Caribbean area this week, giving Washington additional options for possible military action in Venezuela, according to U.S. officials and open source flight-tracking data.

President Trump has ramped up pressure on Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro in recent days, ordering a blockade of oil tankers going in and out of the country. Trump has declared that the airspace around Venezuela should be considered closed and has refused to rule out airstrikes on the country.

Consumers power strongest U.S. economic growth in two years.

Robust spending by U.S. consumers drove greater-than-expected economic expansion in the third quarter, and the strongest growth rate in two years.

Gross domestic product, the value of all goods and services produced across the economy, rose at a seasonally and inflation-adjusted 4.3% annual rate from July through September, the Commerce Department said Tuesday.

Meanwhile, consumer sentiment in the U.S. weakened for a fifth consecutive month in December, amid enduring concerns over jobs and business conditions, a monthly survey said.

• The U.S. Economy Keeps Powering Ahead, Defying Dire Predictions

• Israel’s defense minister said the country would never leave Gaza and would eventually build Jewish settlements there, statements at odds with President Trump’s multiphase plan for the enclave.
   
• Senior Bank of Canada policymakers were reluctant to predict whether the next change in interest rates would be up or down, citing volatile data and elevated trade-policy uncertainty, according to minutes published Tuesday.
   
• In the fourth winter of full-scale war, Ukraine is dealing with its most severe energy crisis since 2022.

• After three years of conversations on the possibilities and pitfalls of artificial intelligence in marketing, some executives say the demand for promised savings is about to get all too real.
   
• The Supreme Court on Tuesday blocked President Trump from sending the National Guard into the Chicago area, dealing a rare loss to the president on an issue of executive power.
   
• The Education Department said Tuesday that it will resume garnishing the wages of student loan borrowers who are in default starting early next year.
   
• Alphabet’s Waymo said it will update its software across the fleet to navigate outages better, after its self-driving vehicles froze and caused traffic congestion during a widespread power outage in San Francisco last weekend.

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