Online Scams: In Phnom Penh, Hun Manet Vows Cambodia Will 'Never Be a Safe Haven'
Cambodia's prime minister opened the International Conference on Combating Online Scams in Phnom Penh on Wednesday, addressing delegations from some thirty countries. A balancing act for a country under international scrutiny.
A Prime Minister on the Defensive
"Cambodia will never be a safe haven for online scams," Hun Manet said as he opened the conference, adding that the country would not let criminal syndicates undermine its progress or the livelihoods of its 17 million people. He was addressing delegations from more than a dozen countries, including the United States and China; the conference as a whole brings together ministerial-level officials from 16 countries and technical delegates from 14 more, according to organisers' figures.
The government is pointing to an early tally of results. According to the Secretariat of the Ad Hoc Commission for Combating Online Scams, Cambodia froze more than $300 million in bank accounts tied to scam operations between July 2025 and the end of August 2026, and referred 446 cases involving 3,927 suspects to the courts. Fifteen people have also been prosecuted on suspicion of shielding these networks from within the state apparatus, including a former deputy prosecutor, a former deputy director-general of immigration and a former deputy Phnom Penh police commissioner.
A Crime That No Longer Recognises Borders
During the high-level session on 'Online Scams as a Global Emergency', officials from Cambodia, Myanmar, Timor-Leste, Indonesia, Laos, the Philippines, Singapore, Uganda, the United Kingdom, Viet Nam and the ASEAN Secretariat converged on a single assessment: online scams now amount to organised transnational crime, not isolated or purely domestic offences. Criminal networks exploit gaps between national laws, jurisdictions, technology systems and financial channels, making any strictly national response insufficient.
Speeding Up Judicial Cooperation
Speakers called for stronger legal frameworks, faster information-sharing across jurisdictions, joint law-enforcement operations and coordinated financial investigations. They stressed the need to dismantle criminal networks at every stage of the chain — recruitment, human trafficking, scam operations, financial transfers and money laundering — while protecting victims and prosecuting those responsible, particularly organisers and financiers. China's vice minister of public security, Yang Weilin, presented the results of his country's cooperation with regional partners, saying Beijing had developed what he called "a Chinese approach to solving this problem."
Human Trafficking and Victim Protection
Online scams are closely tied to human trafficking and forced labour, speakers noted: many victims are recruited under false job offers, then forced to take part in scam operations. They called for a victim-centred approach, including rescue, protection, non-punishment of trafficked persons for offences they were forced to commit, safe repatriation and consular assistance. On the sidelines of the conference, Cambodian authorities this week took journalists on tours of shuttered compounds, one of which reportedly housed as many as 20,000 workers, along with seized material including fake FBI and Chinese police badges used to impersonate law enforcement.
The Role of Banks and Digital Platforms
Beyond law enforcement, speakers pointed to the responsibility of banks, telecom operators, technology companies and digital platforms in detecting and dismantling scam infrastructure and the financial flows tied to it. They also flagged the growing use by criminal networks of cryptocurrency, artificial intelligence and deepfakes, calling for stronger digital investigation, cybersecurity and forensic capabilities.
A Contested Record
The government's account has not gone unchallenged. Several analysts and opposition figures argue that operations so far have mostly hit the mid-level of these networks, leaving untouched influential figures suspected of protecting them, while criminal groups adapt by splitting into smaller units and relocating their operations. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime's regional representative, Delphine Schantz, described a growing openness to cooperate, while cautioning that more work remains at both the national and international level. For exiled opposition figure Mu Sochua, the credibility of the crackdown will hinge on whether Cambodian authorities are willing to investigate every credible allegation, including against the wealthy and well-connected.
A Shared Responsibility
Speakers stressed that the response to this problem must rest on shared responsibility rather than blame directed at any single country, given that criminal networks operate by nature across borders. The conference, hosted by Cambodia on 23 and 24 September in Phnom Penh with the co-sponsorship of INTERPOL, UNODC and the Lancang-Mekong Integrated Law Enforcement and Security Cooperation Centre, runs under the theme 'Acting Together Towards Breaking the Chain and Eradication of Online Scams'.
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