Keynote Address of Samdech Moha Borvor Thipadei HUN Manet at the Opening Ceremony of the International Conference on Combating Online Scams under the theme: “Acting Together Towards Breaking the Chain and Eradication of Online Scams”

• Excellencies;
• Distinguished Delegates;
• Ladies and Gentlemen!

It is my pleasure to welcome you to Phnom Penh for this International Conference on Combating Online Scams under the theme, “Acting Together Towards Breaking the Chain and Eradication of Online Scams.” On behalf of the Royal Government of Cambodia, I extend my profound appreciation to the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL), the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime Regional Office for Southeast Asia and​ the Pacific (UNODC-ROSEAP), and the Lancang-Mekong Integrated Law Enforcement and Security Cooperation Center (LMLECC), for co-sponsoring this conference.

We gather today to exchange perspectives and to reaffirm a decisive and collective commitment against one of the most complex threats of our digital age. True leadership and effective governance demand that we confront pressing challenges with clarity and resolve. Confronting this emerging transnational crime requires the courage to accept hard truths directly, acknowledge systemic vulnerabilities, and tackle complex issues without hesitation or compromise.

• Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen;

Cambodian ancestors built the magnificent temple of Angkor Wat and left to humanity a civilization renowned for its greatness and enduring legacy.  As their descendants, we have the solemn responsibility to safeguard Cambodia’s honour and ensure that our country continues to be known for heritage, resilience, peace and progress.

Samdech Techo Hun Sen’s Win-Win Policy in 1998 ended half a millennium of internal conflict and social upheaval. Over the past 27 years, Cambodia has built a thriving society on the foundations of peace and stability. Cambodia has made significant progress in socio-economic development and institution building, steadily improving our people’s livelihood.

In this historical context, I wish to make our position clear: Cambodia will never be a safe haven for online scams! This transnational crime is a recent post Covid-19 phenomenon—one that is entirely foreign to our national culture, values, and identity. Cambodia will not allow criminal syndicates to undermine our country’s progress and the livelihood of over 17 million Cambodian people.

The online scam industry did not begin in Cambodia. And it is not confined to Cambodia. Cambodia’s early exposure was linked to the growth of online gambling and casino-related businesses. Furthermore, criminal networks continued to evolve and adapt quickly across borders. The transnational syndicates exploited commercial properties, regulatory gaps, and complex cross-border telecommunications networks to establish transnational scam ecosystems.

Cambodia takes full ownership of securing our borders, enforcing our laws, and restoring the integrity of our national jurisdiction. Accountability must be proven through uncompromising internal action. For this reason, in February 2025, we elevated our command structure to a national-level Commission on Combating Online Scams (CCOS) under my direct leadership. Furthermore, Cambodia enacted the Law on Combating Online Scams in April 2026 to close our legal loopholes. These decisive actions have enabled us to execute a unified, whole-of-government, and whole-of-society campaign with the objective to uproot these networks entirely.

We treat law enforcement as a standing national security obligation, not a public relations campaign.

We focus our efforts on permanently eradicating criminal networks, preventing their re-emergence.

We have completely dismantled all large scale Scam Compounds in the Kingdom.

Even as organized syndicates attempt to fragment into smaller, decentralized operations targeting our own citizens, our law enforcement apparatus stays vigilant and ready to dismantle any emerging threat immediately.

To fortify our national defense against future cyber threats, Cambodia is accelerating the development of specialized legislation, including the forthcoming Cybersecurity Law, Cybercrime Law, and frameworks governing virtual assets. Moreover, Cambodia last year became a signatory state of the United Nations Convention against Cybercrime.

International partnership is instrumental to our achievement in combating online scams. Taking this opportunity, I appreciate our key partners and law enforcement agencies from China, the United States, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Australia, ASEAN Member States, other partner countries and international organizations including UNODC, INTERPOL, and IOM.

• Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen;

Our intensive frontline experience in combating online scams has yielded crucial lessons that now shape our strategic framework and can offer valuable insights for our partners.

First and foremost, combating online scams requires elevating the threat to a top-tier national security priority. Establishing centralized bodies like the Commission on Combating Online Scams is critical to synchronize information sharing, financial intelligence, law enforcement, and sub-national administration across all state pillars.

Second, tactical enforcement raids must be reinforced by laws that target the entire criminal networks. Modern anti-online scams legislation must establish explicit criminal liability for not only frontline operators, but also ringleaders, investors, recruiters, property owners, and enablers.

Third, authorities must adapt swiftly to the shifting tactics of criminal syndicates.  When compounds are disrupted, syndicates fragment into small cells hidden in various locations and utilize emerging technologies. Simultaneously, law enforcement strategies must pivot toward rigorous immigration oversight, continuous digital intelligence gathering, and field inspections.

Fourth, law enforcement agencies must strictly adhere to code of ethics. Transnational scam operations largely rely on human trafficking, deceptive recruitment, and forced criminality. We must ensure that trafficked individuals who were coerced into committing fraudulent acts are properly identified, protected, distinguished from willing perpetrators, provided humanitarian assistance, and safely repatriated to their home countries.

• Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen;

Criminal syndicates are mobilized by massive financial incentives and supported by highly sophisticated, cutting-edge technologies. In response, our international unity must be even stronger, backed by modern, efficient, and genuinely collaborative enforcement mechanisms.

Online scam issue should never be weaponized by any nation against another. Nor should anti-online scam objective be used as a pretext by any nation to use force to attack or occupy another nation’s sovereign territory, which is a clear violation of the principles of international law.

On the contrary, anti-online scam efforts should be the reasons for nations to work together with sincerity and mutual respect in order to tackle the issue for common benefits. No single country can effectively tackle this cross-border challenge alone.

• Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen;

As important as international cooperation, every country must take proactive responsibility for educating and safeguarding their citizens. They must enact rigorous measures to warn their people against deceptive overseas employment offers and financial scam traps.

All governments must also constantly conduct public awareness campaigns to educate their citizens on the evolving tactics of digital deception. This is to ensure that vulnerable individuals do not fall victim to online scams.

Furthermore, the global financial and technology ecosystem carries a critical responsibility to ensure that digital infrastructure and banking networks do not serve as safe havens for criminal syndicates. International financial institutions, technology platforms, encrypted communication networks, and cryptocurrency platforms must implement stringent verification protocols to prevent illicit proceeds from being laundered and integrated into legitimate global markets.

In these regards, Cambodia is fully committed to taking persistent action and forging cooperation based on mutual respect, sovereign equality, and collective accountability.

Moving forward, I propose five points for stronger international cooperation: real-time intelligence sharing, advanced financial investigations, greater compatibility of legal and operational frameworks, public-private partnerships, and victim protection.

First, partner countries must double down on rapid-response communication channels among national and international law enforcement bodies to enable real-time intelligence sharing that tracks criminal cells and disrupts decentralized syndicates across borders.

Second, financial intelligence units and anti-money laundering bodies should cooperate and leverage enabling platforms to rapidly trace illicit financial flows, identify ultimate beneficial owners, freeze virtual assets, and dismantle underground banking networks.

Third, international partners should harmonize mutual legal assistance frameworks, streamline extradition procedures, and promote digital forensic evidence sharing to prevent syndicates from exploiting jurisdictional loopholes.

Fourth, governments should build operational partnerships with commercial banks, telecom operators, technology platforms, and cryptocurrency exchanges to proactively detect fraudulent activities, block suspicious digital infrastructure, and freeze illicit accounts.

Fifth, governments and international organizations should strengthen victim identification process, and coordinate diplomatic procedures to guarantee protection and safe repatriation of victims.

• Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen;

Our shared determination to confront these complex challenges must be matched with concrete and collective actions. In this spirit of mutual trust and shared responsibility, Cambodia looks forward to its international partners to adopt the Phnom Penh Declaration on the 24^th of September 2026—a testament to our collective resolve to break the chain and eradicate online scams once and for all.

As we embark on this shared responsibility, I encourage all speakers, panelists and participants to engage in candid, forward-looking, and constructive discussions.

With confidence in our collective strength, I now officially declare the opening of the International Conference on Combating Online Scams, under the theme “Acting Together Towards Breaking the Chain and Eradication of Online Scams”.

Thank you!