UK and Cambodia join forces to take down online scam networks

The United Kingdom and Cambodia are deepening a longstanding partnership to tackle the criminal networks behind online scams, as a UK minister visits Phnom Penh time this week. 

Lord Hanson, Minister of State for the Home Office, will attend the International Conference on Combating Online Scams from 22 to 24 September. He will meet Cambodian government counterparts and the wider international community to discuss this issue of shared concern and set out how the UK will work alongside Cambodia to tackle it.  He will also meet UN agencies and independent journalists, whose brave work played an important role in creating the evidence base for international action against scam centres. 

Cambodia has taken significant and welcome steps in recent months to confront scam operations within its borders, including new legislation, sustained enforcement action, and the creation of a dedicated commission to lead its national response. 

The UK recognises the scale of this challenge, and the effort Cambodia has invested in facing it, and is proud to stand alongside Cambodia as a partner in this work.  Alongside the US, the UK has taken coordinated action to disrupt criminal networks operating scam centres across Southeast Asia, including sanctions that have frozen more than £125 million in assets and supported wider investigations across the region. This forms part of a broader international effort, alongside partners including the US, Australia, Singapore and others attending this week’s conference, to turn growing global cooperation into meaningful results for victims. 

During the visit, the UK and Cambodia will sign a new Memorandum of Understanding. Built on ongoing collaboration, the agreement will support closer intelligence sharing, financial and digital investigations, and stronger protections for victims of trafficking linked to scam operations. It reflects a shared determination between the two countries to turn growing cooperation into real, lasting results and to support accountability for those organising and enabling the international criminal networks behind online fraud. 

Lord Hanson, Minister of State for the Home Office, said: 

Fraud is a truly global threat, which leaves a devastating human impact in its wake – from the defrauded victims who lose everything they’ve spent a lifetime building to the trafficked victims who lose their freedom and are mistreated, tortured and even killed.  No country can tackle this threat alone.

Cambodia has shown determination in confronting the criminal networks operating from within its borders, and I’m proud that the UK can stand alongside our Cambodian partners to ensure we hold all those responsible for these terrible crimes to account. This agreement is about building something practical and lasting: sharing intelligence, tracing dirty money, and above all protecting the people, on every side, who are harmed by this crime. I’m grateful to the Government of Cambodia for its leadership in bringing us together this week, and I look forward to what we can achieve together in the months ahead.

Online scams are a shared, global challenge. Criminal networks in the region target victims across the world, including in the UK, while trafficking vulnerable people and forcing them into fraud against their will. By working together, and combining the strengths each country brings, the UK and Cambodia hope to protect more people from these harms. 

This visit marks a new chapter in the UK and Cambodia’s work together, and forms part of the UK’s wider effort to deepen fraud-fighting partnerships across the Indo-Pacific, including through the INTERPOL Global Fraud Taskforce. Both countries are committed to turning today’s agreement into lasting, practical results, for victims here in Cambodia, in the UK, and around the world. 

Further information

• Lord Hanson is Minister of State for the Home Office. See his biography: David Hanson 

• The visit follows a successful visit to Cambodia by FCDO Minister for the Indo-Pacific, Baroness Winterton, in August 2026.

• On 14 October 2025, the UK and US jointly sanctioned the Prince Group , its chairman Chen Zhi, and related entities Jin Bei Group, Golden Fortune Resorts World and Byex Exchange, for their role in operating scam centres across Southeast Asia. The sanctions froze UK-based assets worth more than £125 million, including a £12 million mansion in North London and a £100 million office building in the City of London.

• Further information on UK sanctions is available on the UK Sanctions List.

• The UK supports the INTERPOL Global Fraud Taskforce (Operation Shadow Storm), a UK–INTERPOL initiative to dismantle transnational fraud networks, with an initial focus on large-scale scam compounds in Southeast Asia.