FBI chief holds talks in Cambodia over closer security cooperation to combat online scam crimes

FBI Director Kash Patel held talks with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet on joint efforts to combat international online scam operations that cheat victims out of billions of dollars each year. A report issued by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime estimated that scams caused losses in the Asia-Pacific region alone of as much as $114 billion in 2025. It warned that even as authorities conduct raids on industrial-sized scam centers mostly located in border regions of Myanmar, Laos, and Cambodia, criminals have responded by shifting to other parts of the world or operating on a smaller scale. Patel arrived in Cambodia from neighboring Thailand, which co-hosted a two-day summit with the U.S. on scam centers that was attended by representatives of nearly 20 countries and hundreds of law enforcement officials. The head of the top U.S. law enforcement agency met with Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul for talks on joint cooperation to tackle scam centers and other transnational crimes, such as human trafficking and drug trafficking, particularly through information sharing and intelligence exchanges. Cybercrime has flourished in Southeast Asia, where law enforcement is weak, particularly in Cambodia and Myanmar. Scam centers are also linked to 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. Cambodia this year claims to have accelerated a crackdown on the scam operations, whose proliferation there is “a top priority for the U.S. government,” according to a U.S. Embassy statement. Washington appreciates Hun Manet’s pledge to counter this problem and is coordinating closely with the Cambodian government to battle the problem, it said. The embassy said Patel’s visit “reinforces the need for strong, joint efforts to combat transnational cybercrime, including increased efforts to hold high-level scam bosses accountable and for improved information sharing regarding complicit officials and scam compound owners.” The U.S. also “fully supports efforts to ensure justice for victims and criminal accountability for online scam operators, those who enable or protect them, and those complicit in related human trafficking crimes,” it added. This article was provided by The Associated Press.