PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — Six Chinese nationals behind an online scam operation were sentenced to life in prison by a Cambodian court on Wednesday over the murder of a South Korean student.
Kampot Provincial Court convicted the six, who are aged between 30 and 54, of murder involving torture and cruelty, as well as aggravated fraud. Cambodia does not have the death penalty.
The body of 22-year-old Park Min-ho was found in Kampot province in August 2025 after he was reportedly lured to Cambodia and forced to work in a scam center before being killed. His body, showing signs of torture.
Park’s death sparked outrage in South Korea, leading to intense diplomatic pressure from South Korean officials on Prime Minister Hun Manet to suppress the large-scale online scam operation s blamed for the killing, as well as other crimes.
The trial began on May 6, according to a court statement shared by Information Minister Neth Pheaktra.
Cybercrime has flourished in Southeast Asia where law enforcement is weak, particularly in Cambodia and Myanmar, with casinos often serving as hubs for criminal activity. Trafficked foreign nationals employed to run “romance” and cryptocurrency scams to swindle victims are often recruited with false job offers and then forced to work in conditions of near-slavery.
The illegal operations make huge profits from victims around the world, according to United Nations experts and other analysts.
Cambodia this year claims to have accelerated a crackdown on the scam centers and their operators.
In January, Cambodia extradited to China an alleged scam kingpin, Chen Zhi, the founder of business and banking conglomerate Prince Holding Group, who was alleged to have masterminded a multinational fraud network that laundered millions in profits. U.S. authorities had sought custody after indicting him last year for allegedly running a huge scam operation.
Cambodian lawmakers unanimously passed legislation in March targeting online scam operations with up to life in prison.
According to the Commission for Combating Online Scam, Cambodia also deported 18,864 people from 33 nations between January 2025 and May 2026, and charged 1,458 individuals with crimes.
U.S. officials last month announced a crackdown on Southeast Asian cyberscam operations as part of what federal prosecutor for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro characterized as a “new theater of war” launched by the Trump administration against Chinese transnational organized crime.
The crackdown, led by a U.S. government Scam Center Strike Force, includes the Treasury Department’s sanctioning of a prominent lawmaker and 28 other people and companies accused of operating from Cambodia. Criminal charges also were filed against two Chinese nationals involved in a similar operation in Myanmar.
The initiative included a warrant to seize and shut down a major online recruitment channel on the Telegram messaging app and the freezing of hundreds of millions of dollars in illicit funds.
Copyright © 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, written or redistributed.
