Cambodian businessman exposed in BBC Eye online scam investigation arrested

Cambodian 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 organised online fraud.

Kuong Li, a 50-year-old Cambodian national, was charged with illegal recruitment for exploitation, aggravated fraud, organised crime and money laundering relating to alleged offences committed in Cambodia and elsewhere since 2019.

On 15 January, a Phnom Penh court ordered him to be remanded in custody pending further proceedings.

Kuong Li was featured in The Pig Butchering Romance Scam, a BBC Eye investigation into allegations of human trafficking and fraud inside scam compounds in South East Asia.

That programme, broadcast in March 2023, focused in part on the Huang Le compound, a venue under Kuong Li’s ownership in the coastal city of Sihanoukville.

The documentary followed the account of ‘Didi’, a Chinese man who said he left home after being promised a well-paid job, but was trafficked into Cambodia and forced to work inside the 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 permitted to leave the complex.

He also shared secretly recorded footage with the BBC and the Global Anti-Scam Organisation (Gaso), a volunteer-run group that helps rescue and support trafficked victims.

In a video diary recorded inside his dormitory, Didi said he was told to “keep scamming as long as you’re alive”, and that he’d witnessed another victim being beaten and dragged out of the office after making a mistake.

In desperation, Didi attempted to escape by jumping from the third floor. He later took shelter in a safe house in Phnom Penh, before eventually returning to China.

Three years after the documentary was broadcast, 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 hospital. The BBC obtained footage of his final hours before he died from organ failure.

The documentary identified Kuong Li as the owner of the Huang Le compound and reported that his business empire covered real estate, casinos, hotels and construction companies. He had previously been awarded the royal honorific title ‘Oknha’ and had been pictured alongside senior officials at public and private events.

The BBC put these allegations to Kuong Li and the Sihanoukville province police. Neither responded to the request for comment before the documentary was broadcast.

In April 2023, however, the Cambodian authorities issued a letter in response to the programme, confirming Kuong Li as the owner of the Huang Le compound but dismissing the allegations as “groundless”.

The letter said an investigation led by the Department of Anti-Commercial Gambling Crime on 8 February 2023 had “found no sign of forced captivity or torture”, and claimed the documentary did not reflect what it described as the authorities’ “utmost efforts” to prevent and eliminate all forms of human trafficking.

Kuong Li also rejected the allegations in interviews with Cambodian media.

In June 2023, Kuong Li was granted the title ‘Neak Oknha’, one of Cambodia’s highest royal honorifics, a rank above his previous title of ‘Oknha’.

While Kuong Li remains in pre-trial detention, Cambodian authorities say investigations are continuing into wider networks linked to organised 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 ringleaders and accomplices.

One high-profile case involved the extradition of Chen Zhi earlier this year. The Chinese businessman and billionaire is accused of masterminding a vast online scam network, trafficking workers into forced labour camps to defraud victims globally.

The move was widely seen as a signal that Phnom Penh was responding to mounting international pressure to address scam compounds and related financial crime 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 at “eliminating 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 parallel crackdowns on online scam operations and the financial networks that support them.

In Thailand, authorities have intensified investigations into money-laundering linked to scam centres, seizing assets and arresting suspects accused of moving illicit funds through banks, cryptocurrency platforms, and shell companies.

Meanwhile, in Myanmar, authorities have carried out 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 had been linked to transnational criminal networks operating across multiple countries in the region.