Cambodia has displayed a shuttered scam compound containing counterfeit cash and a fake police station ahead of a global conference intended to showcase its efforts to combat online fraud.
Around 20 countries, including the US and China, will be represented at the meeting on Wednesday and Thursday, 23rd and 24th September. The talks come amid international pressure on Phnom Penh to do more to tackle the multi-billion-dollar online scam industry, which has made Southeast Asia a hub for crime syndicates.
These operations run centres filled with scammers, some working voluntarily and others trafficked, who defraud internet users through fake romantic relationships or cryptocurrency investment schemes. Cambodia has faced accusations of allowing scams to thrive, with some estimates suggesting the industry has generated the equivalent of as much as half the country’s formal GDP in recent years.
Phnom Penh began a high-profile crackdown in 2025 under pressure from key ally China, where scams have caused widespread public anger, as well as the US, Britain, and other countries. But analysts say the industry has adapted by dispersing to smaller, lower-profile locations, while in many cases centres were given advance warning of raids, allowing them time to evacuate.
A senior FBI official and China’s vice minister of public security are listed on the conference agenda alongside junior ministers and law enforcement officials. Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet is hosting the talks, which aim to boost “collective efforts” against scams.
Analysts expect few concrete outcomes and remain sceptical about the lasting impact of Cambodia’s crackdown, despite hundreds of scam centres being shuttered. “They could come back tomorrow,” transnational crime analyst Jacob Sims told AFP.
Sims said it was “undeniable” that the government had acted but warned: “The elite protection networks, the buildings themselves, the financial institutions, the corporate institutions are all completely in place.”
Closing remarks at the conference are due to be delivered by Deputy Prime Minister Neth Savoeun, whom two US congressmen named last week among individuals they want sanctioned over alleged connections to scam centres.
Cambodian authorities on Monday (21st September) showed off a sprawling scam centre on a 120-hectare site near the Vietnamese border that they said had employed about 20,000 scammers last year. In one room, AFP reporters saw rows of soundproofed phone booths and counterfeit $100 bills scattered across the floor. Chinese motivational slogans, including “Give it your all” and “Getting rich overnight”, were displayed on the walls. A fake Singapore police station was used as a backdrop for scammers making video calls while posing as officers.
Officials said the centre was jointly run by Prince Group’s Chen Zhi and Huione Group’s Li Xiong, both of whom were extradited to China this year. Hay Makara, an official from Cambodia’s anti-scam commission, said authorities had so far closed 663 scam sites, including 86 large compounds, and frozen $300 million in scam-related accounts.
“As of now, there are no more scam compounds,” Makara told reporters. However, he conceded that “the criminals are adapting… working from rented homes, rented rooms, hotels, even in cars.”
The syndicates initially focused on Chinese speakers before broadening their targets to other languages. The US estimates that in 2025 alone, transnational criminal organisations in Southeast Asia defrauded Americans of at least $18.2 billion through cyber-enabled scams. The industry is also concentrated in war-torn Myanmar, with other centres in Laos. Cambodian authorities said last month they had arrested nearly 30,000 suspects, including 15 high-ranking officials and law enforcement officers.
But Lindsey Kennedy, an expert in organised crime, said there had been no effort to properly investigate the sites that were closed or interview those involved. “They did the bare minimum,” she told AFP. “There’s been no interest in gathering evidence in stopping these groups from moving abroad, from actually dismantling networks.”
Several governments have sanctioned individuals and organisations over alleged involvement in scams. The US on Monday announced new visa restrictions on 32 unnamed individuals, the majority of whom are affiliated with the Prince Group, a conglomerate sanctioned by the US, UK, and South Korea.
Visiting Phnom Penh in July, FBI Director Kash Patel said online scams were a “top priority”, urging “increased efforts to hold high level scam bosses accountable”, and more information sharing on “complicit officials”. China, meanwhile, “consistently keeps up pressure”, but does so more quietly, Kennedy said. “They don’t put out sanctions. You only really hear about it when someone gets arrested.”
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