On The Radar: Cambodia's Scammers Hit the Road

Cambodia says it has dismantled all 86 of the large-scale scam centres it has identified in the last two years, but Washington isn’t persuaded. Earlier this month the US State Department’s 2026 Trafficking in Persons Report held Cambodia at Tier 3, the lowest ranking, and found “a government pattern of human trafficking involving scam centres.”

The report is quite blunt about who benefits. It says some senior officials, advisers and law enforcement officers profited from the trafficking of victims and interfered to protect scam operations and intimidate victims and civil society. Cambodia also issued casino licences in January to properties with documented histories of hosting scam centres, and the government has not prosecuted or convicted a single suspected operator or owner.

Phnom Penh rejects the accusations, and Interior Ministry spokesman Touch Sokhak said the government has taken firm action, dismantling all 86 large-scale centres, deporting tens of thousands of scammers, and holding thousands of senior operators in custody with their cases currently before the courts.

Chhay Sinarith, who heads the Commission for Combating Online Scams, said in August that the Anti-Corruption Unit had arrested 15 high-ranking officials and law enforcement officers in four scam-related cases. The US State Department credited the campaign with closing hundreds of suspected centres, freeing thousands of potential trafficking victims and netting high-profile arrests, including Prince Group chairman Chen Zhi, extradited to China in January. The Cambodian government has now drafted a law with penalties of up to 20 years in prison for scam perpetrators who engage in trafficking.

The people freed from the compounds are a different story. The report says Cambodian authorities detained tens of thousands of former scam workers in immigration facilities with little or no screening to identify potential trafficking victims. The consequences are on-going , with workers still being repatriated after being held in Cambodian immigration centres.

Meanwhile, the industry is relocating. In July, an Indonesian foreign ministry official said former Cambodia-based workers had dispersed to several countries, including Timor-Leste, where hundreds of people have been arrested over the last few months. Many of those detained are simply fined and released, with many reportedly then heading straight back into a fresh scamming enterprise. Indonesia’s embassy in Phnom Penh reportedly recorded more than 12,000 nationals seeking help to return home between January and June of this year.

The newest destination is the Pacific. Last month, Papua New Guinea police raided a house in inner Port Moresby. They rescued 39 Indonesians, 34 men and five women, in what is the first such case uncovered in the country, and detained four Chinese nationals. PNG Police Commissioner David Manning told the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project the workers had been “brought in specifically to run this scam from Papua New Guinea.” Donald Yamasombi, the force’s chief of special operations, said the syndicate arrived in June, “basically escaping out from Cambodia.” Police are still hunting a fifth Chinese national believed to have led the operation and are working with Australian counterparts to break into seized cellphones and other electronic devices.

Richard Horsey, of the International Crisis Group, told OCCRP the raid adds PNG to a growing list of smaller developing countries, including Timor-Leste, Madagascar and Sri Lanka, being newly infiltrated by cybercrime and trafficking groups. Yamasombi was candid about why a place like Port Moresby is attractive. He said the raid highlighted the vulnerability of “relaxed” Pacific states to transnational criminal networks.

The spreading pattern of new scam operations also reframes the Cambodian crackdown. The US State Department’s complaint is not simply that scam centres remain; it is that the people behind them largely haven’t been prosecuted while the people inside them have been detained. If the syndicates can relocate within months to the Pacific, it’s an issue not really being addressed.

For Pacific governments and their partners, New Zealand among them, the PNG raid looks like an early warning rather than an isolated case. Wellington should ensure island states and their police forces have the ability to spot these operations before they establish themselves.

Asia Media Centre