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Korean, Cambodian police raid scam compound and rescue one Korean national, arrest 26 others

Published: 21 Dec. 2025, 17:25

The photo shows suspects under arrest in Cambodia after the Korean National Police Agency said on Dec. 21 that it rescued a Korean man being held in a scam compound and arrested 26 others. [NEWS1]

Korean and Cambodian police rescued a captive Korean man and arrested 26 other Korean nationals in a raid on a scam compound near the Cambodian-Vietnamese border, authorities said on Sunday.

The Korea-led task force, a joint investigative unit formed by Korean and Cambodian police to combat crimes targeting Korean nationals, carried out the operation on Thursday in Mondulkiri, Cambodia.

A phone call that the man had made to his family played a decisive role in helping police locate the compound.

“He told his family where he was over the phone, and because he called using [one] that he had brought from Korea, we were able to roughly pinpoint his location by tracking his signal,” a police official said.

The police then dispatched four Korean officers to Cambodia on Dec. 2. The officers surveyed the site to assess the scale of the compound, the placement of armed guards and possible escape routes.

Because the site sat just 50 meters (164 feet) from the Vietnamese border, authorities worried that suspects would flee to the other country.

The photo shows suspects under arrest in Cambodia after the Korean National Police Agency said on Dec. 21 it rescued a Korean man who was being held in a scam compound and arrested 26 others. [KOREAN NATIONAL POLICE AGENCY]

Police used intelligence from earlier cases and Korea's National Intelligence Service to map the building's layout and access points. They also worked with Mondulkiri Province's police to block escape routes and finalize plans for the joint operation.

Authorities initially scheduled the raid for Saturday. However, when they observed armed guards attempting to flee the compound, they pushed the operation forward by two days. A team of 40 Cambodian police officers raided the facility on Thursday, rescuing the captive and arresting 26 Korean nationals on suspicion of participating in online scam operations.

This was the third operation conducted by the task force since its creation. The unit also arrested 51 Korean nationals connected to similar online scams in Sihanoukville, Cambodia, on Dec. 10. The task force has rescued two victims and arrested 92 suspects in December alone.

Korean police said they are working with Cambodian authorities to repatriate the suspects after concluding local investigations.

“This arrest operation shows how Korean and Cambodian police have built a closely coordinated international cooperation process that effectively protected overseas Koreans and dismantled criminal organizations,” said Lee Jae-young, the director general of the National Police Agency's intelligence division. “We will take the lead in eradicating transnational organized crimes such as online scams and voice phishing.”

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
BY KIM NAM-JUN [[email protected]]