Cambodia has pledged to shut down all online scam centres operating within its borders by the end of April, according to the senior minister leading the country's anti-cybercrime efforts. Senior Minister Chhay Sinarith, head of the Commission for Combating Online Scams, told the Associated Press that authorities have already closed around 200 of the 250 targeted locations since July, representing an 80% success rate.
Police operations will continue after April to prevent the scam centres from re-emerging, Chhay Sinarith said. The crackdown has resulted in 79 legal cases against 697 alleged ringleaders and associates, and nearly 10,000 foreign workers from 23 countries have been repatriated, with fewer than 1,000 awaiting official return.
Cybercrime in Southeast Asia, particularly in Cambodia and Myanmar, has cost victims worldwide tens of billions of dollars annually, according to UN experts. The scams often involve human trafficking, with foreign nationals lured by false job offers and forced to run romance and cryptocurrency frauds under near-slavery conditions.
On Tuesday, Cambodian police raided a suspected scam centre in a high-rise building in Phnom Penh, arresting about 60 Cambodians and Chinese nationals. Deputy Police Commissioner Bun Sosekha said the scammers were targeting Europeans with fake investment schemes. Confiscated equipment included uniforms and fake IDs used to impersonate Japanese police officers.
The illicit activity began around 2012 using VOIP phones and proliferated during the COVID-19 pandemic, when casinos turned to online scams on an industrial scale. The scam centres have since spread globally, reaching Africa and Latin America.
