A fascinating investigative report by Fiona Kelliher for Radio Free Asia (RFA) shows that some of the biggest donors to the Cambodian Red Cross (CRC) are individuals alleged to have ties to the scam compounds that illegally generate a large portion of Cambodia’s wealth. Kelliher has identified more than USD7.2mn in donations to CRC since 2020 that came from organizations and individuals with links to scam compounds and the associated crime of human trafficking. Some of these donors have been sanctioned by foreign governments.
Now after years of warnings about the CRC’s political entanglements, its use for reputation-building among Cambodia’s elite appears to have extended to those allegedly connected to Cambodia’s thriving human trafficking industry.
A scroll through the Cambodian Red Cross Facebook page showcases dozens of posts thanking groups with documented ties to cyberscams for their donations. Some have given large sums year after year, while others have given more sporadically.
Even the scummiest of crooks want to be liked.
Such donations have the impact of painting alleged criminals in a positive light to citizens, while also currying favor with the ruling party, said Jacob Sims, an expert on the Southeast Asian human trafficking crisis.
“It’s abundantly clear that the CRC is only one of many different mechanisms for elite patronage being paid into a profoundly corrupted system,” Sims told RFA.
There was not much pushback to the article from the CRC, or from the International Federation of Red Cross (IFRC), of which CRC is a member.
In response to RFA’s questions about the IFRC’s oversight of national Red Cross societies, the federation said it “takes seriously any credible allegation of violation of the integrity policy,” including mismanagement of funds, fraud and corruption and abuse of authority, but that it cannot “speculate on violations or investigations” of national societies without further review.
The CRC did not respond to questions about its process for reviewing donations or whether it was aware of reports about alleged criminal activity of its donors.
Notable donors to the CRC include Ly Yong Phat (pictured) who was sanctioned by the US government in September 2024 for “serious human rights abuse related to the treatment of trafficked workers subjected to forced labor in online scam centers”. Ly is a member of the ruling faction in the Cambodian Senate. He has personally donated USD640,000 to the CRC during the last two years, and facilitated a further USD3mn in donations involving the Cambodian Oknha Association, a nonprofit organization of which Ly is President.
USD100,000 was donated to the CRC by a foundation associated with the Zheng Heng Group, which was sanctioned by the UK in 2023 because of its links to forced labor. Chen Al Len, the director of K.B. Hotel, a notorious human trafficking site, has donated USD110,000 to the CRC since 2021. K.B. Hotel is another one of the Cambodian entities sanctioned by the UK in 2023.
In 2023, the United Nations’ Human Rights Commissioner reported that an estimated 100,000 people were being forced to work in scam compounds in Cambodia. Recent evidence suggests that number must be growing because the building of new compounds is evident from satellite photography and equipment that had been used in scam compounds within Myanmar is being transported to Cambodia.
Even bad people want to be liked. As a professional risk manager, I sometimes tire of the naivety of telecoms professionals who behave like all fraud is ‘technical’ in nature, that everybody speaks the truth, and that all we need is better technology to block scam communications. Criminals own technology too. They also own governments and police. In countries like Cambodia, the scamlords own slaves as well. That is why consumer protection needs to move beyond platitudes about tracing calls by focusing on the hard-hitting action that must be taken to disincentivize and punish crime. Experts are right to demand tough new sanctions on Cambodian scamlords.
The scamlords employ public relations advisors who craft the impression that they are upstanding members of society. We will not defeat scam bosses with technology alone. They must be outed, sanctioned, and ostracized. And ideally, they should be sent to prison. None of that will happen unless we increase the pressure on governments to acknowledge that fraud is not a ‘technical’ crime to be tackled as if it does not matter whether the criminals responsible are ever caught and punished. We need to make the punishment of scamlords a top priority, whether that involves taking away the reputations they attempt to purchase through charitable donations, or taking away their money, or ideally by taking away their liberty by locking them in a prison cell, and thus deterring anyone who wants to repeat their crimes.
“$7 million in Cambodian Red Cross donations tied to alleged cyberscammers” by Fiona Kelliher can be read here.
