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Aidan Jones

Cambodia is set to present the outcome of its crackdown on scams to global governments and security agencies gathering in Phnom Penh this week.
Yet questions remain over where the missing billions have gone – as well as the role of the country’s elite, who for many years denied the problem existed at all on Cambodian soil.
Scam compounds took over declining mega-casinos during the pandemic. As borders closed, gamblers were replaced with scam workers: many tricked, trafficked and forced to commit cyber fraud for Chinese criminal networks.
Under intense pressure from Beijing and Washington, Cambodia last year took belated action.
Compounds have since been closed across the country and tens of thousands of scam workers have been detained and deported. Some crime bosses have been arrested, while many have fled to Myanmar and beyond.
On Wednesday, Cambodia hosts the International Conference on Combating Online Scams, supported by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and Interpol.
It is a chance for Prime Minister Hun Manet to tout his government’s enforcement actions against cyber scammers, an effort he has called “cleaning our own house” of an issue that has badly damaged his country’s reputation.
Hun Manet will open the conference, where organisers hope to secure an agreement on a framework for greater intelligence sharing and victim protection. The aim is to build transnational capacity to combat scam networks that change bases and business models faster than authorities can act.

Ahead of the conference, government-guided tours of emptied compounds in Phnom Penh and nearby Prey Vang province offered the media a glimpse into the scale and sophistication of the now-defunct operations, with banks of mobile phones, SIM cards, stacks of passports and official uniforms used in elaborate cons.
Cambodia had deported 21,102 foreign nationals of 38 nationalities as of June 30, according to official figures.
Reputational rehab?
Critics of Cambodia’s response to the scam crisis say this week’s conference is an effort by Phnom Penh to mark its own homework as it seeks to move on from the damaging scandal.
Bringing global parties together was an attempt to secure endorsement for Cambodia’s self-declared “mission accomplished”, said Jacob Sims, a transnational crime expert and visiting fellow at Harvard University Asia Centre.
“Everything they [the Cambodian government] have done reflects a country that recognises it has incurred severe reputational damage to the formal government apparatus,” he said, suggesting the Cambodian elite were now happy to “cut their losses” after raking in untold wealth and closing down the industry.
A July report by the UNODC estimated losses from scams across East Asia, Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand were between US$88.3 billion and US$114.1 billion for 2025 alone. The World Bank put Cambodia’s gross domestic product at just over US$51 billion last year.


“No one is denying the scam compounds are mostly shut down,” Sims said, warning that without greater accountability over where the money had gone and unrelenting outside monitoring, the scam centres would likely reopen as soon as the world moved on.
Elite ties and international pressure
The main driver behind the crackdown was the alleged involvement of Cambodian elites, whose exposure only grew as international law enforcement closed in.
In April, the US Treasury sanctioned Kok An, a Cambodian senator and prominent tycoon accused of controlling scam compounds throughout the country.
Known for his close ties to Hun Sen, the current prime minister’s father and a strongman ruler who led the country for over three decades, Kok An was already the subject of an arrest warrant issued by Thailand.
US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent warned earlier this year that fraudsters and scam centres “that steal billions of dollars from hardworking Americans” were in his government’s crosshairs “no matter where they operate or how well-connected they are”.
Several other Cambodian tycoons, provincial officials and government figures have also faced scrutiny, alongside prominent Thai politicians and businessmen.
Many were named in a letter sent last week by US lawmakers urging Bessent and Secretary of State Marco Rubio to investigate their eligibility for sanctions.
Profits from scam centres had equalled as much as 60 per cent of Cambodia’s formal GDP, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Brian Mast said in the letter.

Sims said the amount of money involved suggested “state capture”, adding that any cash laundered through Cambodian banks raised urgent questions over the safety of those institutions.
Critics of Cambodia’s government have urged representatives meeting in Phnom Penh this week to demand greater accountability from their hosts, alleging that the same authorities now poised to hail a scam crackdown had allowed the industry to thrive in the first place.
“Hosting an international conference in Phnom Penh while the system protecting these scam compounds remains entirely intact is an exercise in political theatre,” said Mu Sochua, president of the Khmer Movement for Democracy, a former leading opposition lawmaker to Hun Manet’s party and a Nobel Peace Prize nominee.
“Every raid we see today targets the lowest tier of this machinery: the victims forced into cyber-slavery and the low-level operators on the floor. Meanwhile, the high-level bosses, the politically connected tycoons and the complicit government officials who lease the land, grant the security and pocket the proceeds remain entirely untouchable.”


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Cambodia

Cambodian police officers stand guard outside a closed complex in Kandal province on Tuesday, following a raid to dismantle suspected scam and cyber-fraud operations. Photo: EPA

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet speaking during an interview in Brussels in February. Hun Manet rejected claims of government involvement in cyber-fraud networks, saying scam centres damage the nation’s economy and image. Photo: AFP

Equipment at a raided cyber-fraud complex in Svay Rieng province, Cambodia, on Monday, ahead of an international conference in the country targeting online scams. Photo: EPA

Southeast Asia’s scam gangs regroup after Cambodia’s purge

Thai soldiers inspect a workstation at a suspected scam compound near the Chong Chom-O’Smach border crossing with Cambodia in December. Photo: Reuters

Chinese public security officers escort a suspected China-born scam boss off a plane after he was extradited from Cambodia in April. Photo: China’s Ministry of Public Security / AFP

Members of an ethnic armed militia raid a suspected scam compound in Shwe Kokko, Myanmar, in February last year. Photo: AFP

Alleged scam centre workers and victims sit next to dismantled IT equipment during a raid on a compound in Myanmar’s Myawaddy township by a local ethnic armed militia in February last year. Photo: AFP

Hun Manet vows to make Cambodia ‘not worth staying’ for scammers

A soldier stands guard inside a compound that is believed to have been used for scam operations in O’Smach, near the Thai-Cambodian border, on March 6. Photo: Reuters

Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Manet (righ) shakes hands with FBI Director Kash Patel during a meeting at the Peace Palace in Phnom Penh on Wednesday. Photo: AKP/AFP

Cambodia’s ‘performative’ crackdowns fail to stop scam centres: Amnesty

Cambodian authorities display equipment seized from a scam compound in Phnom Penh on March 11. Photo: EPA

Indonesian nationals removed from scam compounds in Cambodia are deported to their home country via Techo International Airport in March. Photo: Aidan Jones 

Why Cambodia is reviving US military drills despite close China ties

US Under Secretary of Defence Elbridge Colby (left) shakes hands with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet before a meeting in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on August 14. Photo: AKP / AP

US and Cambodian troops at the opening of Angkor Sentinel 2016 in Kampong Speu province. Photo: US Army

A Chinese naval vessel seen docked at Cambodia’s Ream Naval Base in April 2025. Photo: Kyodo

A man sits on his motorbike in front of the US embassy in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Photo: Reuters

Personnel from the People’s Liberation Army Air Force and the Royal Thai Air Force at Falcon Strike 2023. Photo: Facebook/RTAF

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Phnom Penh is gathering global law enforcement to showcase compound closures, but critics point to the missing billions and elite ties


Phnom Penh is gathering global law enforcement to showcase compound closures, but critics point to the missing billions and elite ties.


Cambodia hosts anti-scam summit as scepticism lingers

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Phnom Penh is gathering global law enforcement to showcase compound closures, but critics point to the missing billions and elite ties

Phnom Penh is gathering global law enforcement to showcase compound closures, but critics point to the missing billions and elite ties