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Cambodia has closed almost 200 scam centers in crackdown

Published: 11 Feb. 2026, 18:26

A private room, where managers overseeing scam operations stayed, is covered in debris inside a compound in O'Smach at the Chong Chom-O'Smach border crossing in Samraong, Oddar Meanchey Province, Cambodia, on Feb. 2. [REUTERS/YONHAP]

Cambodia has closed almost 200 scam centers in a crackdown on transnational fraud in recent weeks, a senior government official said, with authorities providing rare access to one center to show that they are tackling the sophisticated operations targeting people across the globe.

“There are about 190 locations that we have sealed off now,” Chhay Sinarith, the deputy chief of Cambodia's secretariat of the commission for combating online scams, told Reuters in Phnom Penh this week before the visit to a sprawling complex in Kampot Province near the Vietnam border.

Chhay said 173 senior crime figures linked to the centers had been arrested and 11,000 workers deported in a campaign that began late last year after the United States indicted and then China extradited a China-born alleged scam kingpin in the strongest international move so far against the criminal networks.

Since then, thousands of scam workers, some of them trafficking victims confined in brutal conditions, have fled compounds in recent weeks to return home in what Amnesty International has called a “humanitarian crisis.”

At the Kampot compound, reporters were shown large rooms with rows of computer stations; desks strewn with documents instructing how to scam Thai victims; studio booths for phone calls; and a fake Indian police station.

The Indian Embassy in Phnom Penh did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

An Indian flag, right, and a Delhi police flag hang on a bunk bed in a dormitory inside a compound used for scam operations at the Chong Chom-O'Smach border crossing in Samraong, Oddar Meanchey Province, Cambodia, on Feb. 2. [REUTERS/YONHAP]

Authorities said there were no arrests made inside the Kampot casino complex known as “My Casino.” Workers fled after the detention of alleged boss and tycoon Ly Kuong, and police said they lacked the manpower to detain those leaving.

Contact details for representatives of Ly Kuong, who is under arrest, were not immediately available.

“We have only about 1,000 police officers in the entire province, and there are about 300 military police officers,” said Mao Chanmothurith, the Kampot provincial police chief, during the government-organized tour.

“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,” he continued.

The visit came a week after Thai officials led media and foreign delegates to see a separate compound in Cambodian territory that Thai troops bombed and occupied during a border conflict in December 2025. Reuters found similar materials, including fake police stations from multiple countries and reams of documents.

Cambodia long played down the existence of scam compounds in the country, and previous crackdowns have done little to stop their spread. Officials say the latest campaign is broader in scope, with a focus on closing sites and detaining senior figures.

Reuters