Three Young Cambodian Women Arrested in Phnom Penh for Running Online Scam Operation

Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Police raided the location in Por Sen Chey district’s Chom Chao 2 commune, detaining the suspects and seizing five computers and 34 mobile phones, along with related equipment hidden under furniture. Images from the scene show a workspace typical of cyber scam operations: multiple i-phones of older version lined up on a desk, computer monitors displaying chat interfaces in multiple languages, and power adapters and chargers concealed beneath a wooden bed frame.

The women, whose faces were blurred in photos released by local observers, appear to be in their late teens or early twenties. One wore a white T-shirt, another a hoodie over a graphic top, and the third a black top with jeans. Chat logs visible on the seized devices reveal multilingual romance-style scams, with scripts in Japanese, Korean, and Khmer targeting potential victims across Asia. The screen also showed fake Instagram profile and telegram opened for victim communication.

For years, Cambodia’s scam compounds, often sprawling facilities in border areas like Sihanoukville and Poipet, have primarily relied on trafficked foreigners, including Chinese, Vietnamese, and others, forced into fraud under duress. This latest arrest highlights a shift: local Cambodians are increasingly participating as operators, trained by Chinese-led networks that established the industry in the country.

“Cambodia’s scam compounds have notoriously run on foreign trafficking victims, but that’s been shifting, and now some of the people working the keyboards are local,” noted Jacob in Cambodia, a researcher tracking the industry. “They learned it from the Chinese networks that built this industry on Cambodian soil and tarnished the country’s name doing it.”

The involvement of young Cambodian women underscores how the scam economy has permeated local communities, with some residents adopting tactics originally imported by transnational criminal syndicates.Police have not yet released the suspects’ names or ages, and it remains unclear whether they will face charges related to fraud, organized crime, or other offenses. The case is under investigation.This incident comes amid broader efforts by the Cambodian government to rehabilitate the country’s image, damaged by its association with cyber slavery and fraud. Observers say sustained action against both large compounds and emerging local networks will be critical to curbing the problem.