Prime Minister Hun Manet says Cambodia will not be a haven for scammers — Channel NewsAsia
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet said at the opening of an international conference on combating cyber fraud in Phnom Penh that the country would not become a safe haven for transnational scam groups. The event is attended by delegates from more than a dozen countries, including the United States and China.
The head of government said the authorities would not allow criminal syndicates to undermine the country’s development and the well-being of more than 17 million Cambodians. He also expressed support for strengthening international cooperation, including the real-time exchange of intelligence.
Claims of dismantling scam centers
Cambodian authorities claim to have dismantled large industrial-scale scam compounds. At the same time, some analysts question these claims, saying that the raids allegedly did not affect influential individuals. As Channel NewsAsia reports, citing Reuters, journalists on Monday and Tuesday visited large centers closed by the government, one of which may have employed up to 20,000 people.
Journalists also saw materials seized by police, including fake badges of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and Chinese police. They were used in schemes involving impersonation of law enforcement officers.
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Calls for international cooperation
Delphine Schantz, regional representative of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, called the conference evidence of greater readiness for cooperation. At the same time, she stressed that more needs to be done at the national and international levels, including aligning understanding of key trends and regulatory approaches, and investing in the collection of digital evidence.
The report notes that Cambodia and other Southeast Asian countries have in recent years become hubs of the transnational cyber-fraud industry. In such compounds, groups mostly run by Chinese nationals held victims of human trafficking and forced them to engage in romance scams, police impersonation fraud and other schemes.
Cambodia says it has raided hundreds of compounds and deported hundreds of thousands of people over the past year. At the same time, analysts and opposition figures say politically connected individuals who allegedly protected the networks remained untouched, while criminal groups adapted by splitting their activities into smaller units and moving operations abroad. Exiled opposition politician Mu Sochua said that confidence in the campaign would depend on the state’s willingness to investigate all substantiated allegations regardless of the wealth, influence or official status of those involved.
