Cambodia sentences six for murder of South Korean student linked to scam centre

PHNOM PENH, May 27 (Reuters) – A Cambodian court has convicted and sentenced six Chinese nationals to life in prison on charges they tortured and murdered a South Korean student involved with one of Cambodia’s notorious scam centres, a court spokesperson said on Wednesday.

The student’s death in August last year kicked off a diplomatic firestorm with Seoul, which issued travel bans for parts of Cambodia, imposed sanctions, and launched joint efforts to crack down on the sprawling centres, which have been accused of enslaving and abusing workers and stealing billions of dollars from scam victims around the world.

The Kampot Provincial Court found all six men guilty of torture, murder, and aggravated fraud, the spokesperson said in a statement.

According to an autopsy report released by Korean authorities in November, the 22-year-old victim died from blunt force trauma after beatings and torture.

Southeast Asia has emerged in recent years as an epicentre of the global cyberfraud industry. Compounds which are mostly run by Chinese criminal gangs and staffed partly by trafficking victims living in brutal conditions have proliferated across Cambodia, Laos, the Philippines, and lawless areas of the Myanmar-Thai border.

Many of these countries have been pressured to crack down by foreign governments like the United States, which estimates that Americans lost $10 billion to Southeast Asian scam centres in 2024.

Cambodia has extradited to China a number of senior individuals accused of leading scam syndicates.

The United Nations estimates hundreds of thousands of people have worked in the centres, some lured with the promise of a well-paid job but many forced to do so under threats of violence.

(Reporting by Reuters staff; Writing by Josh Smith; Editing by Aidan Lewis)