Cambodia shuts 663 scam sites, hosts global conference to show results

Cambodia has closed 663 scam sites, including 86 large compounds, and frozen 300 million US dollars, according to Mediacorp. The figures came from Hay Makara, an official from Cambodia's anti-scam commission, ahead of a two-day global conference in Phnom Penh that opened this week.

Around 20 countries sent representatives, including the US and China. A senior FBI official and China's vice minister of public security both appear on the agenda, alongside junior ministers and law enforcement officials from across the region. Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet is hosting the talks, which aim to strengthen coordinated action against scam networks.

What the closures show

One compound shown to reporters this week sat on a 120-hectare site near the Vietnamese border. It had employed about 20,000 scammers last year. Inside, AFP journalists saw soundproofed phone booths, counterfeit US$100 bills scattered on the floor, and a fake Singapore police station built as a backdrop for video calls in which scammers posed as officers. Officials said the site was jointly run by Chen Zhi of Prince Group and Li Xiong of Huione Group. Both men have been extradited to China this year.

A single compound running fake police stations and counterfeit currency at that scale shows how far these operations went beyond opportunistic fraud into built infrastructure, designed to be believed by the people targeted.

Why the scepticism

Cambodia has faced accusations of allowing scam centres to flourish, with some estimates putting the industry's output at as much as half the country's formal GDP in recent years. The crackdown began in 2025 under pressure from China, the US and Britain. Analysts told AFP the industry has since adapted by dispersing into smaller, lower-profile locations, and that some centres received advance warning of raids, giving them time to evacuate before officers arrived.

Transnational crime analyst Jacob Sims called the government's action "undeniable" but said the underlying structure remains untouched: "The elite protection networks, the buildings themselves, the financial institutions, the corporate institutions are all completely in place." Deputy Prime Minister Neth Savoeun, who is delivering the conference's closing remarks, was named last week by two US congressmen among individuals they want sanctioned over alleged links to scam centres.

What this means for people targeted by these networks

Compounds staffed by tens of thousands of people running fake romance and crypto investment schemes have supplied a large share of the scam messages reaching phones and inboxes worldwide. Closing 663 sites and freezing 300 million US dollars removes real infrastructure and cuts off funds that would otherwise be recycled into new operations. It does not mean the model disappears; analysts expect it to keep moving to smaller, harder-to-spot locations. The conference brought international law enforcement, including the FBI and Chinese authorities, into direct coordination on a problem that has always crossed borders faster than any single country's police could follow.