Outrage Over Cambodian Scam Centers Grows, Prompting Action from Global Leaders
South Korean and Cambodian officials met this week to discuss the repatriation of South Koreans who are allegedly being trafficked and forced to work in Cambodian scam centers.
South Korean student Park Min-ho, 22, died earlier this year and his body was discovered in August 2025 in the back of a Ford truck in the southern Cambodia province of Kampot. Park reportedly died of a cardiac arrest after being tortured and beaten, according to ABC News. An investigation into his death found that he had been living in a building used by an online scam organization.
News of the student's death and delayed return of his remains prompted a South Korean delegation to met with Cambodian officials, including Prime Minister Hun Manet, on Thursday. The goal of the talks is to repatriate 60 South Korean citizens arrested by Cambodian officials for involvement in online scams based in Cambodia, as well as return Park's remains.
“South Koreans have been outraged by Cambodia’s vast online scam industry, which uses trafficked workers from various countries to target victims around the world. Officials estimate that about 200,000 people, including some 1,000 South Koreans, are working at online scam sites in Cambodia,” ABC News reported.
It's unclear why so many South Koreans are working for online scam groups. One theory is that individuals were falsely promised high-paying jobs and then forced to work for fraud organizations once they traveled to Cambodia. ABC News reports that between January and August of 2025, there were reports of 330 South Koreans being forcibly detained in Cambodia.
South Korea has also implemented a travel ban for its citizens to parts of Cambodia in response to the alleged trafficking. The ban covers Bokor Mountain in Kampot, where Park's body was found, plus two towns on Cambodia's border shared with Vietnam and Thailand.
Online Scam Sites
These online scam centers have set up shop in Southeast Asia, including Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, and the Philippines, according to the United Nations (UN).
The UN found that in 2023 “at least 120,000 people across Myanmar and 100,000 people in Cambodia are being held in situations where they are forced to carry out online scams, including romance investment scams, cryptocurrency fraud, and illegal gambling,” Security Management previously reported.
Since then, the issue has grown into a humanitarian and human rights crisis, according to three independent experts (Special Rapporteurs Tomoya Obokata, Siobhán Mullally, and Vitit Muntarbhorn) who submitted a report to the UN Human Rights Council in May 2025. Many people who work in these scam centers are also victims, individuals who believed they were signing up for legitimate work before being forced to operate in a scam center victimizing others.
Workers are recruited globally, sometimes even kidnapped, and some are sold to other fraudulent operations.
“Once trafficked, victims are deprived of their liberty and subjected to torture, ill treatment, severe violence and abuse including beatings, electrocution, solitary confinement and sexual violence,” the Special Rapporteurs said.
Workers are not freed until someone pays for their ransom. If they are caught trying to escape, then they are tortured or killed, often “with total impunity and with corrupt government officials complicit,” according to the UN.
In a report published by Amnesty International in June 2025, an investigation identified at least 53 online scam centers just in Cambodia, “where human rights abuses have taken place or continue to occur, including human trafficking, torture and other ill-treatment, forced labor, child labor, deprivation of liberty and slavery.”
The group’s investigation also claimed that the “Cambodian government is deliberately ignoring” the human rights abuses occurring at these sites.
Recent Sanctions
The United States and United Kingdom issued sanctions on a multinational crime network that used hundreds of thousands of trafficked workers in online scam centers across Southeast Asia.
The sanctions were levied against 146 people operating within the Prince Group, which the U.S. Treasury Department labeled a transnational criminal organization. The U.S. Department of Justice also seized roughly $14 billion in Bitcoin from the group in a forfeiture action.
U.S. federal prosecutors unsealed an indictment, revealing charges of wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy against the organization’s chair, Chinese-Cambodian Chen Zhi. Chen, who is not in custody, faces up to 40 years in prison if he is found guilty of the charges.
Meanwhile, the United Kingdom also issued sanctions on six entities and people associated with the Prince Group. The UK froze assets related to 19 properties in London, estimated to be worth more than £100 million ($134 million), that have a connection to the network.
