Cambodia Vows No Safe Haven for Scam Syndicates at Global Anti-Fraud Summit

Cambodia's prime minister declared that his country would not serve as a refuge for transnational online scam operations, speaking at the opening of a two-day international conference on cyberfraud in Phnom Penh on Wednesday.

"Cambodia will never be a safe haven for online scams," Prime Minister Hun Manet told delegates from more than a dozen countries, including the United States and China. He said criminal syndicates would not be permitted to damage the nation's progress or the livelihoods of its people, and voiced support for deeper international cooperation, including the real-time exchange of intelligence.

The gathering is intended to present Cambodia's efforts against an industry worth billions of dollars. Authorities say they have dismantled large-scale scam compounds and, over the past year, raided hundreds of such sites and deported hundreds of thousands of people, responding to pressure from Washington and other governments.

The United States estimates that Americans lost more than $10 billion to scammers operating in the region in 2024 alone.

Southeast Asia, Cambodia among them, has in recent years become a hub for transnational cyberfraud, with compounds largely run by Chinese-led criminal gangs where trafficking victims are held and forced to carry out romance scams, police-impersonation fraud and other schemes.

Ahead of the conference, reporters toured sprawling facilities shut down by the government, one of which had housed as many as 20,000 workers, and viewed seized items including counterfeit FBI and Chinese police badges used in impersonation fraud.

Delphine Schantz, regional representative of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, described the conference as a sign of "growing openness to cooperate," but said more remains to be done nationally and internationally. She called for a shared understanding of key trends and coherent regulatory frameworks, including investment in digital evidence collection.

Skepticism persists, however. Analysts and opposition figures argue that the raids have left politically connected individuals who allegedly shielded the networks untouched, while criminal groups have adapted by splitting into smaller units and shifting operations abroad.

Mu Sochua, an exiled opposition politician, said in a statement that the credibility of the crackdown "will depend on whether the Cambodian state is willing to investigate all credible allegations, regardless of wealth, influence or official position."