Cambodian Ministry of InformationCambodian authorities have arrested a prominent businessman featured in a 2023 BBC Eye investigation into alleged online scam operations as part of a wider effort to tackle organized online fraud.
Kuong Li, a 50-year-old Cambodian national, was charged with illegal recruitment for exploitation, aggravated fraud, organized crime and money laundering related to alleged crimes committed in Cambodia and elsewhere since 2019.
On January 15, a Phnom Penh court ordered that he be remanded in custody pending further proceedings.
Kuong Li is featured The Pig Roasting Romance Scama BBC Eye investigation into allegations of human trafficking and fraud within scam compounds in South East Asia.
That program, which aired in March 2023, focused on the Huang Le compound, an area under Kuong Li’s ownership in the coastal city of Sihanoukville.
BBC EyesThe documentary follows the story of ‘Didi’, a Chinese man who says he left home after being promised a well-paid job, but was trafficked to Cambodia and forced to work inside a walled compound.
Didi said he was made to work from 20:00 to 08:00 local time (13:00 to 01:00 GMT), targeting victims in Europe and the United States, and was not allowed to leave the complex.
He also shared the secretly recorded footage with the BBC and the Global Anti-Scam Organization (Gaso), a volunteer-run group that helps rescue and support victims of trafficking.
In a video diary recorded inside her dormitory, Didi said she was told to “keep cheating as long as you live”, and that she witnessed another victim being beaten and dragged out of the office after making a mistake.
In desperation, Didi tried to escape by jumping from the third floor. He later took refuge in a safe house in Phnom Penh, before returning to China.
Three years after the documentary aired, he is now working in a factory in southern China.
The investigation also featured testimony from another Chinese man, Mi Lijun, who said he became seriously ill while being held at the compound. He was found abandoned on a highway and taken to the hospital. The BBC obtained footage of his last hours before he died of organ failure.
BBC EyesThe documentary identified Kuong Li as the owner of the Huang Le compound and reported that his business empire consisted of real estate, casinos, hotels and construction companies. He was previously given the royal honorific title ‘Oknha’ and was pictured with senior officials at public and private events.
The BBC put these allegations to Kuong Li and the Sihanoukville provincial police. Neither responded to a request for comment before the documentary aired.
In April 2023, however, the Cambodian authorities issued a letter in response to the program, confirming that Kuong Li was the owner of the Huang Le compound but dismissing the allegations as “baseless”.
The letter said that the investigation led by the Department of Anti-Commercial Gambling Crime on 8 February 2023 “did not find any signs of forced captivity or torture”, and claimed that the documentary did not show what it described as the “best efforts” of the authorities to prevent and eradicate all forms of human trafficking.
Kuong Li also denied the allegations in Cambodian media interviews.
In June 2023, Kuong Li was awarded the title of ‘Neak Oknha’, one of Cambodia’s highest royal honorifics, a rank higher than his previous title of ‘Oknha’.
Single L/FusWhile Kuong Li remains in pre-trial detention, Cambodian authorities say investigations are continuing into wider networks involved in organized online fraud.
The Secretariat of the Commission for Combating Cybercrime said Cambodian courts handled 37 major cases between 2025 and mid-January 2026, resulting in the conviction of 172 leaders and accomplices.
A high-profile case involves the extradition of Chen Zhi earlier this year. The Chinese businessman and billionaire is accused of running a vast online scam network, trafficking workers to forced labor camps to defraud victims around the world.
The move is widely seen as a signal that Phnom Penh is responding to increasing international pressure to address scam compounds and related financial crimes operating within its borders.
Earlier this month, Prime Minister Hun Manet said on Facebook that Cambodia considers “fighting tech-savvy crimes” a priority and aims to “eliminate all negative issues related to online scam crimes”.
The United Nations estimates that hundreds of thousands of people have been trafficked to South East Asia – in many cases to Cambodia – with promises of well-paid jobs, before being forced to run online scams in harsh conditions inside confined compounds.
Across the region, governments have launched coordinated crackdowns on online scam operations and the financial networks that support them.
In Thailand, authorities have stepped up investigations into money-laundering linked to scam centers, seizing assets and arresting suspects accused of moving illegal funds through banks, cryptocurrency platforms, and shell companies.
Meanwhile, in Myanmar, authorities are conducting raids on several high-profile scam hubs, detaining thousands of people and dismantling facilities accused of running large-scale online fraud schemes.
Many of these sites are linked to transnational criminal networks that operate in many countries in the region.