Cambodia Busts 200 Scam Centers Involved in Gambling, and More

Cambodia has shuttered nearly 200 scam centers in recent weeks, based on reporting by Reuters. This is part of an ongoing effort to stamp out criminal activity involving thousands of foreign nationals who work at call centers and other venues to scam overseas victims. 

The crackdown follows intensified international pressure, including a US indictment and China’s extradition of a major scam kingpin, marking a broader and more aggressive campaign than previous efforts.

Reuters Shows Facilities Where Thousands of People Were Forced to Work

The facilities targeted in a series of raids have been tied to money laundering, extortion, romance scams, and illegal gambling, with law enforcement dealing what could be a mortal blow to this type of crime in the country. 

Kingpin Kuong Li, one of the most influential nefarious figures in these illegal facilities, was arrested in mid-January, after the BBC, a British media outlet, flagged his involvement in the business back in 2023, prompting follow-up actions from Cambodian authorities.

Reuters showed footage of the venues from which Kuong Li’s operations ran in Sihanoukville. The investigators discovered a corporate-based structure for running the activities, with modern equipment, such as computers, phones, and high-speed Internet available.

Workers would receive guides on how to scam different people, including Thai nationals, that were specifically tailored to the nationality of the victims. The scale of these operations was something unheard of, with more than 7,000 workers suspected to have been involved.

Cambodian police were unable to detain all of them, with most fleeing, as the local provincial police force amounts to only 1,000 people. 

Thousands Flee the Scene of the Crime, Police Unable to Enact Arrests

In a statement, Kampot provincial police chief Mao Chanmothurith details the logistical difficulties:

“We have only about 1,000 policemen in the entire province, and there are about 300 military policemen. Even with both forces combined, we still can’t stop them because there were about 6,000 to 7,000 of them when they left this place.” 

Overall, police have been able to arrest 173 senior crime figures since last year, when a mass crackdown against the sector began, with as many as 11,000 workers deported. 

In January, Cambodia confirmed that it had extradited Chen Zhi, a billionaire businessman accused of running a massive cryptocurrency scam, to China. He is likely to face the death penatly there.