‘A game of whack-a-mole’: how could the scam industry bring China and the US together?

Illustration: Davies Christian The compound is modern with air conditioning in every room.

Inside are a medical clinic, massage parlour, and Vietnamese barbecue, Chinese hotpot and halal eateries – a full range of conveniences.

Yet the residents are gone – and they appear to have fled in haste.

Clothes still hang out to dry, while the stench of rotting food lingers.

Located in a secluded area in Kampot province near Cambodia’s border with Vietnam, the site is believed to be a telecoms scam centre.

Cambodian authorities said about 6,000 to 7,000 people had been housed across 31 multi-storey buildings in the compound until January 17, when its alleged boss, former tycoon Ly Kuong, was detained.

Thousands fled that day.

The scene is the site of Cambodia’s most extensive crackdown yet on the notorious online scam industry that has long flourished within its borders.

But it also highlights the scale of such operations across Southeast Asia – and points to a rare opportunity for Beijing and Washington to collaborate on dismantling the transnational crime networks that sustain them.

A Cambodian police officer stands guard near a deserted scam compound in Kampot province, Cambodia, in February.

Photo: Reuters While there is no agreed official count of how many such centres are operating in Cambodia, a minister from the Commission for Combating Online Scams told Associated Press last month that since July 2025, 250 locations had been targeted, of which about 200 had been closed.

The government has set a target of the end of this month for shutting down all the country’s online scam centres, having this week passed its first legislation aimed at such operations.

Under the new legislation, organisers or directors of scam centres can be sentenced to five to 10 years in prison and fined 500 million to 1 billion riels (US$125,000-US$250,000).

In case of a death linked to a scam centre, defendants can face up to life in prison.

Researchers have traced the roots of the telecoms and online scam industry to Taiwan in the 1990s, from where operations leapfrogged to mainland China, before spreading to Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and the Philippines.

Among the most lucrative types of fraud operated out of these compounds are “pig-butchering scams”, in which a fabricated online persona is used to build a romantic or friendly relationship with the target, who is then lured into a fake investment scheme.

Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of people, mostly from Asian co

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