Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Manet opened a two-day international conference on cyberfraud in Phnom Penh on September 23, declaring that the country would "never be a safe haven for online scams." The event, co-hosted by Interpol, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, and China's Lancang-Mekong Cooperation mechanism, brought together delegates from more than a dozen countries, including the United States and China. In the days leading up to the summit, the government granted journalists from 39 domestic and international media organisations access to No. 8 Park — a vast former scam compound in Prey Veng province, in Cambodia's southeast, capable of housing around 20,000 people. Inside, reporters found elaborate mock-ups of foreign law enforcement offices, including a room bearing signage for Singapore's police commercial affairs department, used by traffickers to coerce victims into deception schemes.

The conference and the media tour are part of a broader crackdown that Cambodian authorities say has resulted in raids on more than 830 suspected scam sites, the dismantling of 86 large compounds since July 2025, and the deportation of more than 20,000 foreign suspects. Senior Minister Chhay Sinarith, who heads Cambodia's ad hoc Commission for Combating Online Scams, has declared that "large-scale scam activities have been brought fully under control." Cambodian leaders and state media have been unusually candid that a central aim of the conference is to help "restore the country's international reputation," which suffered badly after Cambodia became one of Southeast Asia's most prominent hubs for Chinese-led criminal syndicates that detained trafficked workers and forced them to carry out romance scams, police-impersonation fraud, and other schemes. American victims alone lost an estimated $10 billion to scammers operating across the region in 2024.

Yet the crackdown has drawn widespread scepticism from analysts, opposition figures, and foreign governments. Critics argue that raids have targeted foreign operators and front-line infrastructure while leaving politically connected Cambodian elites largely untouched. Cambodia's ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) spent years denying the existence of the scam economy and repressing journalists and rights groups who sought to expose it. For decades the party has granted powerful allies the autonomy to accumulate wealth — including from illicit business — provided they remain politically loyal. Businessmen Ly Yong Phat and Kok An, both longstanding allies of the Hun family, have been sanctioned by the United States for alleged involvement in running scam centres. Chen Zhi, chairman of the Prince Group conglomerate — sanctioned jointly by the US and UK for running what authorities described as a "criminal empire built on forced labour and deception" — served as an adviser to both former Prime Minister Hun Sen and his son and successor Hun Manet before being arrested and extradited to China in January, only after sustained pressure from Washington and Beijing.

The question of elite accountability has now reached the US Congress. The chairs of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the House China Select Committee have written to the Trump administration requesting investigations into 26 individuals and two entities — including Interior Minister Sar Sokha, Deputy Prime Minister Neth Savoeun, and Hun To, a cousin of Prime Minister Hun Manet who has acknowledged owning a 30 percent stake in Huione Pay, a digital payments platform that the US Financial Crimes Enforcement Network formally designated a "financial institution of primary money laundering concern." Blockchain analysis firm Elliptic has also linked Huione Group's physical operations to the No. 8 Park compound itself. The exiled opposition politician Mu Sochua said the crackdown's credibility "will depend on whether the Cambodian state is willing to investigate all credible allegations, regardless of wealth, influence or official position."

The broader concern is structural. Cambodia's scam economy was not an aberration but the latest iteration of a decades-long pattern in which successive illicit industries — from land and natural resources to casinos — were converted into private wealth and political power. Analysts argue that without accountability reaching those who provided political protection, criminal networks are simply adapting, breaking into smaller units and relocating operations across borders. For the international community, the lesson may be that hosting conferences and scripted cooperation are insufficient unless conditioned on verifiable action against the political economy that made these compounds possible in the first place.