Online scams are a rapidly growing scourge: The Global Anti-Scam Alliance estimates that $442 billion USD globally was lost to scammers in 2025. A major driver of this growth has been the emergence of professionalized online scam operations run by transnational criminal organizations based across hundreds of compounds in Southeast Asia, particularly in Myanmar and Cambodia. These crimes are two-sided: On one side, the criminal organizations steal billions from victims all around the world, and on the other side, these organizations rely on a trafficked workforce of people who are forced — sometimes brutally — to scam others.
In 2025, the United States unveiled a national Scam Center Strike Force to coordinate inter-agency efforts against cryptocurrency fraud and scams based in Southeast Asia, seized a record amount of stolen cryptocurrency, and sanctioned the Prince Group, a large conglomerate in Cambodia, over their scam activities. Other countries — including the UK and South Korea — have also intensified pressure on Cambodia over the scams. In January 2026, Cambodia extradited the head of the Prince Group, Chen Zhi, to China just ahead of a visible crackdown on some compounds, which has caused an exodus of workers — including those who were trafficked into the scam compounds and in need of assistance.
Join us for a discussion about the impacts of sanctions and other initiatives from the United States on countering scams, the current situation in Cambodia, and what needs to happen beyond visible crackdowns to take down scam compounds.
Featured Speakers
Mech Dara, Independent Journalist
Mech Dara is an independent journalist whose investigations into Cambodian human trafficking hubs forcing victims to carry out global scams helped bring the issue of online scams to international attention. For this reporting he won the 2023 Trafficking in Persons Report Hero Award from the U.S. Department of State. He was detained for his work in 2024, and after his release took a brief hiatus from reporting before returning to it in 2025 through a series of articles published by the Mekong Independent. Earlier in his career he worked with the two major English langauge newspapers in Cambodai: his career began with The Cambodia Daily, where he worked until 2016 when he moved to work at the Phnom Penh Post (2016-2020). He freelanced with the Voice of Democracy website from 2020-2021 and then worked there full-time until its closure in 2023.
Danielle Keeton-Olsen, Freelance Journalist
Danielle Keeton-Olsen is a freelance journalist based in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, who has specialized in stories about land rights, environmental conservation, labor rights and development in excess. She has also investigated the international scam and online gambling industry that’s planted itself in Cambodia’s borderland casinos, both for local and international media.
Bradley J. Murg, Distinguished Research Fellow and Senior Advisor, Cambodian Institute for Cooperation and Peace
Dr. Murg first visited Cambodia in 2000 when he was a Henry Luce Scholar working at the Asian Development Bank. In addition to his role at CICP, Dr. Murg serves as the Provost and Vice-Rector for Academic Affairs, Paragon University; Dr. Murg also holds appointments as Adjunct Research Fellow at Pacific Forum (Honolulu); co-editor of The Journal of Greater Mekong Studies; and Research Fellow at the Central European Institute for Asian Studies. His work focuses on contemporary international relations in Southeast Asia; politics of foreign aid; and the political economy of the Greater Mekong.
Brett Blackshaw, Senior Advisor for the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, U.S. Department of State
Brett Blackshaw is Senior Advisor in the Department of State’s bureau of East Asian and Pacific (EAP) Affairs. He leads policy initiatives to increase State’s role in securing access, basing and overflight (ABO) for U.S. forces in the region, and to counter Asia-based organized crime groups using online scams to target Americans. Prior to this tour, he served on detail to the Department of War as Foreign Policy Advisor to the Commander, U.S. Pacific Fleet and as Senior Advisor in the Office of the Secretary of War (Policy) for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs. A member of the Senior Foreign Service, Brett was Political Counselor at U.S. Embassies in Manila and Hanoi, and did tours in Beijing, Tokyo, Bangkok and at the United Nations. At headquarters, he led State policy initiatives on the South China Sea, ASEAN, and Mekong sub-region. He was born in the U.K. and holds degrees from Cornell and Columbia Universities.
Jacob Sims, Visiting Fellow at the Asia Center, Harvard University
With Harvard University, Jacob leads a policy/research agenda examining the political economy of transnational crime in Mekong Southeast Asia. His work evaluates the structural enablers of key crime nodes; the symbiotic relationship of syndicate networks with regional regimes; potential security/stability implications; and the landscape of legal and policy remedies to the status quo. In conjunction/parallel with his role at the university, he serve as an issue expert on regional transnational crime, rights, and security issues — producing novel research and analysis, speaking at thought leadership forums, providing commentary for global media outlets, and serving in advisory capacities to a range of key organizations and government agencies working in the space.
Courtney Weatherby, Fellow and Deputy Director, Southeast Asia Program (Moderator)