In Focus: Thailand reveals a Cambodian scam center

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In Focus: Thailand reveals a Cambodian scam center

Nikkei Asia visits abandoned organized crime base

DOMINIC FAULDER and KEN KOBAYASHI   MARCH 19, 2026:https://asia.nikkei.com/photos/in-focus-thailand-reveals-cambodian-scam-center

The Thai military and Foreign Ministry recently flew 40 journalists to Buriram in the country’s northeast. They were taken through a dense forest to O Smach, a border crossing and casino town in Cambodia with a cluster of scam centers. Until December, it was a base for online gambling and scamming run by mostly Chinese, in cahoots with members of Cambodia’s elite.

“It is quite clear that Thailand has instrumentalized Cambodia's reputational issues related to the scam industry to help garner international support for the extraterritorial aggression they were involved in late [last year],” Jacob Sims, a visiting fellow at Harvard University’s Asia Center, told Nikkei Asia.

“Given the fact that Cambodia has emerged reputationally as this sort of next-generation, digitally-mediated mafia state – for very good justification – I think Thailand was able to sort of get away with one here,” he said. “Media and law enforcement tours of these conquered compounds are part of that continuing narrative.”