PHNOM PENH, Cambodia -- PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — Cambodia, notorious for being a major center for international online scams, claimed Friday it no longer hosts any of the compounds where the lucrative cybercrime was carried out, although some remain skeptical.
The government’s Ad-Hoc Commission for Combating Online Scams, CCOS, claimed success for its crackdown at a Thursday meeting with about 50 representatives of foreign diplomatic missions and international organizations led by Senior Minister Chhay Sinarith, who heads the anti-scam agency, it said in a statement issued Friday.
“This follows the complete eradication of large-scale online scam operations, strict legal actions against perpetrators, networks and involved officials, alongside the systematic establishment of a cybersecurity legal framework,” it said.
Chhay Sinarith's claims were met with both skepticism and guarded optimism from independent groups that have tracked the scam compounds, which are infamous not only for bilking billions of dollars from people all over the world, but also for carrying out human trafficking.
Thousands of foreign nationals, who are employed to run “romance” and cryptocurrency scams to swindle victims, are often recruited with false job offers and then forced to work in conditions of near-slavery.
