Phnom Penh Governor Khuong Sreng shared an update yesterday on the city's ongoing crackdown against online scam operations. From July 2022 to mid-August this year, joint law enforcement teams have turned the city inside out, inspecting 23,125 residential compounds and registering nearly 150,000 foreign nationals from 75 different countries.
Over this period, police cracked 196 scam cases and arrested 3,806 transnational suspects from 27 countries. Police sirens are a constant fixture on the streets, the sweep operations haven't let up, and you see far fewer unfamiliar faces around rental properties these days.
Property owners aren't getting off easy either. Under local Directive No. 03, authorities have hit 127 landlords with fines for intentionally hiding foreign tenants, totaling 3.03 billion riel—roughly $750,000. Landlords who turn a blind eye for higher rent are finding out the hard way that it's not worth the risk.
