bust Posted June 25, 2025 Report Posted June 25, 2025 Noticed a variety of threads started earlier so thought maybe just start one on all thing Cambodia We have a subscription in Australia called Smartraveler. I'm sure other countries have something similar. This came through today. Due to ongoing dispute along the Cambodia-Thailand border, the closure of all land border crossing points was announced on 24 June 2025. This situation can change at short notice, monitor local media for the latest updates and follow the advice of local authorities (see ‘Travel’). There have been reports of fatal cases of avian influenza (H5N1) or bird flu in Cambodia. Avoid close contact with birds and animals that might be infected, especially dead or sick birds, and avoid places like poultry or dairy farms and markets that sell live animals (see 'Health').
bust Posted July 18, 2025 Author Report Posted July 18, 2025 Cambodian elites complicit in cybercrime despite latest government crackdown, experts warn The state operation conducted over multiple days resulted in more than 1,000 arrests. (AP: Agence Kampuchea Press) In short Cambodian authorities have launched a crackdown on cybercrime making more than 1,000 arrests in the past week. Police raided cybercrime compounds across at least five provinces and arrested people from across Asia. What's next? A transnational crime expert says the operation was a performative exercise and there is no evidence the government is serious about tackling the illicit industry A crackdown by Cambodian authorities on cybercrime operations has resulted in the arrests of more than 1,000 suspects in the past week. The South-East Asian country's Prime Minister Hun Manet issued the order authorising state action for "maintaining and protecting security, public order, and social safety", and threatened job losses if law enforcement failed to act. "The government has observed that online scams are currently causing threats and insecurity in the world and the region," Hun Manet said in a statement. "In Cambodia, foreign criminal groups have also infiltrated to engage in online scams." Prime Minister Hun Manet ordered a crackdown on cyberscam operations and threatened job losses if law enforcement did not comply. (AP: Agence Kampuchea Press) More than 1,000 people were arrested in raids in at least five provinces between Monday and Wednesday, according to statements from Information Minister Neth Pheaktra and police. Transnational crime expert Jacob Sims said like previous mass raids in 2022 and 2024, this latest government crackdown appeared "fully performative" and blaming foreign actors was a "constant refrain". He said that even if the public was to believe the figure which it had yet to be independently verified, it made up less than 1 per cent of the total cybercriminal workforce which he estimated to be about 150,000. "Even if several thousand more people were removed it is a rounding error on the regime's most profitable industry." Mr Sims's 2025 report into Cambodia's transnational crime estimated that the cyberscam industry was worth $19 to $29 billion and contributed 60 per cent of the country's gross domestic product. Police seized equipment, including computers and hundreds of mobile phones. (AFP: Pool photo) Ruling elite enables crime Mr Sims said there was "no evidence the government was serious about tackling the industry". If anything, he criticised the Cambodian government for enabling the sector to proliferate because the ruling elite "depended on the criminal profits to sustain their grip on power". "As the largest and highest margin industry in the country, it was now likely too big to fail for the regime." The suspects detained in the latest crackdown in the capital Phnom Penh and the southern city of Sihanoukville reportedly included 85 Cambodians, more than 200 Vietnamese, 27 Chinese, and 75 suspects from Taiwan. Police also seized equipment, including computers and hundreds of mobile phones. At least 270 Indonesians, including 45 women, were arrested on Wednesday in Poipet, a town near the Thai border that was notorious for cyberscam and gambling operations, the information minister said. Suspects arrested in Sihanoukville were from Vietnam, Taiwan, China, and Cambodia. (AP: Agence Kampuchea Press) Elsewhere, police in the north-eastern province of Kratie arrested 312 people, including nationals of Thailand, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Myanmar and Vietnam. Twenty-seven people from Vietnam, China and Myanmar were also arrested in the western province of Pursat. Last month Amnesty International published the findings of an 18-month investigation into cybercrime in Cambodia, which the human rights group said "point towards state complicity in abuses carried out by Chinese criminal gangs". "The Cambodian government is deliberately ignoring a litany of human rights abuses including slavery, human trafficking, child labour and torture being carried out by criminal gangs on a vast scale in more than 50 scamming compounds located across the country," it said. The scam behind the scam Photo shows A person sits at a computer desk behind bars, their head resting on one hand, lit up by the screen Inside the elaborate scam that tricked vulnerable Thai workers into a prison-like Cambodian call centre, forced them to catfish strangers and exposed them to torture. Many of those freed from South-East Asian scam centres say they were trafficked or lured there under false pretences. There are at least 53 scam compounds in Cambodia where organised criminal groups carried out human trafficking, forced labour, child labour, torture, deprivation of liberty and slavery, the Amnesty report said. Mr Sims said the government also used a number of mechanisms that sustained the industry like encouraging criminal migration via a corrupted "citizenship by investment scheme", facilitating human trafficking through Phnom Penh's international airport, and the use of Cambodian security services to guard compounds. "It all boiled down to the disturbing reality that the industry's top perpetrators are also the country's most powerful people." He said tip-offs reported to the government were not acted upon and none of the key compounds had been raided. He said the world was now experiencing the harm that Cambodia's rulers previously only inflicted domestically. The Cambodian government did not respond to the ABC's request for comment. ABC/AFP 1
Coss Posted October 14, 2025 Report Posted October 14, 2025 Cambodia opens US$2 billion Techo International Airport A US$2 billion airport in Cambodia opened its runways to the first planes on Tuesday (Sep 9), bringing hopes for a tourism revival. Officials hope the facility - which replaces Phnom Penh's old airport as the capital's main aviation transport hub - will boost Cambodia's struggling tourism industry. Built by a major state-owned Chinese construction firm, the Techo International Airport is a 2,600 hectares behemoth jointly funded by the Cambodian government and the privately-owned Overseas Cambodian Investment Corporation (OCIC).... LINK
bust Posted October 15, 2025 Author Report Posted October 15, 2025 I like the old Phnom Penh airport. Especially watching the Visa on Arrival stampede 😊 1
Coss Posted February 5 Report Posted February 5 Images show abandoned belongings and mock police stations at a former scam center in Asia O'SMACH, Cambodia (AP) — In the town of O’Smach, along Cambodia’s northern border with Thailand, stands a compound of abandoned buildings that were battered by shelling during recent weeks of armed clashes. The site, now occupied by Thai troops, had served as one of Cambodia’s notorious scam centers, according to Thai officials. A six-story building, shown to journalists and international observers on Monday during a trip organized by the Thai military, is scattered with documents, equipment and personal belongings, likely abandoned in haste. “They are well-organized. They have good infrastructure and systems, and also the workflow and many, many tactics and techniques to do the scams,” said Lt. Gen. Teeranan Nandhakwang, director of the Thai army’s intelligence unit....LINK
bust Posted February 5 Author Report Posted February 5 Scammers staged a fake AFP set in a Cambodian compound. Here's what we know The scam compound in O'Smach included a mock Australian Federal Police office. The room in the abandoned Cambodian scam compound bears the familiar logos of the Australian Federal Police on its walls, and its desk is bookended by two Australian flags. But the office is fake — apparently staged by scammers who Thailand's military says operated from the six-storey scam centre in the border town O'Smach, Oddar Meanchey Province. The fake AFP set is among many rooms staged to resemble offices for police forces from around the world, including China, Singapore, Brazil, India, Indonesia and Vietnam. The compound had what appeared to be a mock-up set resembling a Chinese police station. The discovery follows a warning from the AFP in November that scammers impersonating its officers were targeting Australians for cryptocurrency. Experts say while scammers have long been known to impersonate authorities, the images emerging from the Cambodian compound were striking. "It's confirmation that they're doing it at scale," said University of Melbourne academic Ivan Franceschini, who researches scam operations in South-East Asia. "They're targeting many different nationalities. That's terrifying because they're really good at it." Inside the compound Thailand's military said it discovered the fake AFP office inside the scam compound after seizing it during its border clashes with Cambodia late last year. Inside, it said it found evidence of transnational fraud, including staged sets for police forces from several countries. On a trip to the building organised by the Thai military, journalists and international observers on Monday saw rooms scattered with documents, equipment and personal belongings, likely abandoned in haste. Personal belongings appeared to be left behind in the scam centre's bedrooms. Thai officials said the compound housed thousands of people, many of them victims of human trafficking who were forced into scamming. Documents recovered from the site appear to list potential targets and their contact details. "They are well organised. They have good infrastructure and systems, and also the workflow and many, many tactics and techniques to do the scams," said Lieutenant General Teeranan Nandhakwang, director of the Thai army's intelligence unit. The Thai military said Cambodian forces had used the compound as a military base before it was seized. Under a ceasefire reached in December, the countries agreed to de-escalate tensions and hold their forces at the positions they occupied prior to the deal, including the compound on Cambodian soil now occupied by Thai troops. Dozens of rooms had wooden booths lined with foam for soundproofing, scripts written in multiple languages, lists of names and phone numbers, computer monitors and empty brackets for hard drives. Scammers 'weaponising' police authority While scammers are known to impersonate state authorities, they have operated largely out of public view. Experts say the photos from O'Smach give an insight into their tactics. Dr Franceschini said scammers used fake offices staged in compound "studios" to convince their targets they were credible. After initially calling or messaging their target, they aimed to override any doubts by following up with a video call. The fake sets didn't need to be accurate — only credible, he said. "They must conform to the idea that you might have of a police station office. "[The scammers] engage with people who might never have had any engagement with the police." Dr Franceschini said police impersonators also targeted victims in China, India, Thailand, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and Brazil. The AFP last year warned the public that scammers impersonating its officers were making video calls to Australians. 'Mass exodus' from Cambodian scam compounds a 'humanitarian crisis' Cambodia has witnessed a "mass exodus" from the country's online scam operations in recent weeks amid growing international pressure and the extradition to China of an alleged kingpin. Scammers used fake ReportCyber reports to deceive victims into sending them funds from their cryptocurrency accounts, using their personal information, likely to have been taken from a previous data breach. They provided reference numbers to make the reports sound valid, and asked targets to confirm the reports by checking their email and visiting the ReportCyber portal, the AFP said. Scammers impersonating police officers aimed to manipulate victims by creating a sense of fear and urgency, said Hai Luong, a researcher in criminology at Griffith University. The photos of fake police offices in O'smach showed scam centres were "weaponising" trust in police officials. "It is physical evidence of how state authority itself has become a tool of organised crime," he said. How is the AFP responding? Experts say the scam threatens to undermine public trust in police and plays on people's natural fear of authority. "It is very challenging to respond to, but law enforcement agencies like AFP should consider directing resources to public awareness campaigns to alert people to the risk," Dr Franceschini said. "The public also needs to be alert to these types of scams." A Thai journalist wears a fake Singapore police uniform at a mock-up set resembling a police station inside the scam compound in O'Smach. An AFP spokesperson said its officers in Cambodia were working with local authorities, including the Cambodian National Police, in response to scam centres targeting Australians. "The AFP is aware of scams where scammers pretend to work for the AFP and other law enforcement agencies to deceive victims into sending them funds," the spokesperson said. "Unfortunately, these set-ups can look quite convincing, resulting in victims losing funds to scammers." Among common warning signs, scammers acted quickly with a phone call and email, claimed to be from the AFP or other police agencies, and may try to video call their targets from a staged "AFP office", the spokesperson said. "The AFP will never contact you by video call, ask for money, demand action over the phone, or ask you to verify personal or banking details," they said. The spokesperson urged anyone contacted by someone claiming to be from the AFP to: Stop all communication with the scammer immediately — if in doubt, hang up the call and contact a physical AFP office Do not transfer funds or provide any information relating to bank or other financial accounts Notify their bank or account provider immediately if they have transferred funds or provided any sensitive information Report it to police "We are committed to equipping all Australians with the knowledge and resources to protect themselves against cybercrime," the spokesperson said.
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now