JAKARTA - Phnom Penh Administration said its unified command inspected 92 locations across the capital on June 12 and found 333 foreign nationals, including 128 women and 11 people without passports. The administration published the figures on June 13.
The checked sites included condominiums, apartments, borey developments, guesthouses and hotels suspected of links to technology-enabled fraud. The operation was carried out under Phnom Penh Governor Khuong Sreng and involved unified command teams from all 14 districts.
The June 12 inspection also found one suspected online scam case. According to accounts citing Phnom Penh Administration spokesperson Dor Samphors, Por Sen Chey district authorities inspected a rented room in Chrey Kaong village, Choam Chao II commune, after a landlord’s report.
Authorities detained three Cambodian women and seized five all-in-one computers, one monitor, 34 phones allegedly used for offences, four personal phones and one Honda Dream motorcycle.
The Phnom Penh inspection followed earlier checks in the capital from May 28 to May 30. AKP, Cambodia’s state news agency, said authorities inspected 81 locations and checked 705 foreign residents, including 174 women, during that three-day operation.
Among those checked, 24 foreigners were found without passports or valid legal documents and transferred to municipal police for further processing.
The checks come during Cambodia’s broader campaign against online scam networks. AKP said National Police raided 50 locations linked to online scam activity from May 1 to May 22, arresting about 3,320 people from 32 nationalities.
Of that total, 1,030 people from 16 nationalities were deported, and 96 suspects from six nationalities were sent to court.
Cambodia is also part of a wider Southeast Asian trafficking and scam-centre problem. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime launched its #TrappedInScamCrime campaign in Phnom Penh on March 19, saying the campaign targets trafficking into scam centres across Southeast Asia.
Dr. Rebecca Miller, UNODC’s regional coordinator for countering human trafficking and migrant smuggling, said, “Across the region, we are witnessing industrial-scale human exploitation.”