FBI Director Kash Patel met with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet on July 22 to coordinate efforts against international online scam operations that cost victims billions of dollars annually, according to Fortune and ABC News.
The meeting followed a two-day summit in Bangkok on July 20-21 that Patel co-hosted with Thailand, drawing representatives from nearly 20 countries and hundreds of law enforcement officials. A report issued by the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime estimated that online scams caused losses of as much as $114 billion in the Asia-Pacific region in 2025 alone.
Patel’s Cambodia visit reinforces the U.S. government’s focus on the country as a key site of scam operations. A U.S. Embassy statement said the 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.”
Scam centers in Southeast Asia have flourished where law enforcement capacity is weak, particularly in Cambodia and Myanmar. The operations rely on deception: criminals use false job offers to recruit thousands of foreign nationals who are then forced to work in near-slavery conditions running “romance” and cryptocurrency scams that swindle victims worldwide, according to the sourced reporting.
Even as authorities conduct raids on industrial-sized scam compounds located mostly 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, the UN report warned. Cambodia’s government claims to have accelerated its crackdown this year, and Hun Manet announced that Cambodia will host an international conference on combating cyber scams in September.
The U.S. also stated it “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.”
Sources
- Fortune — Kash Patel’s meeting with Hun Manet, UN estimate of $114 billion in Asia-Pacific scam losses for 2025, details of the Thailand summit
- ABC News — Confirmation of Patel-Hun Manet talks, scam operations linked to human trafficking, details of forced labor in scam centers
