Cambodia's National Assembly Passes the Anti-Technology Fraud Law — Life Sentences Now on the Books, but Operator Accountability Remains Elusive
The Cambodian National Assembly passed the Law on Anti-Technology Fraud on April 3, 2026 in a vote that crossed party lines and faced no major procedural opposition. The Senate ratified the same week. Royal Assent from King Norodom Sihamoni is the remaining procedural step before the law takes effect. The legislation codifies what had been a fluid year of prosecutorial improvisation — license revocations under existing gaming-management statutes, deportations under immigration regulations, asset seizures under anti-corruption law — into a single criminal regime with tiered penalties designed for the specific structure of online-scam organisations.
The five new criminal offences cover: operation of online scam infrastructure; direction of scam compounds; recruitment and training; specialised money laundering tied to fraud proceeds; and malicious personal-data collection. Penalties scale by role and aggravating circumstance. Compound workers and call-floor operators face two to five years in prison and fines of up to US$125,000. Directors of scam compounds face five to ten years and US$250,000 fines, escalating to ten to twenty years where human trafficking, illegal confinement or violence is established. Ringleaders whose operations result in fatalities face fifteen to thirty years or life imprisonment.
The political timeline behind the bill
The legislation was drafted under direct supervision of the Ministry of Interior with input from the National Police, the General Department of Immigration, and the Anti-Money Laundering Unit at the National Bank of Cambodia. UK and US diplomatic pressure was a significant accelerant — the U.S. Treasury's October 2024 OFAC designation of Senator Kok An and 28 linked entities (which froze roughly US$700 million in cryptocurrency tied to the Chen Zhi network) had forced the Cambodian government into a public posture that demanded a codified legal response. The European External Action Service also raised the matter in two ASEAN dialogues during 2025.
King Norodom Sihamoni is expected to grant Royal Assent within two weeks, after which the law will be published in the Royal Gazette and take force. The Commercial Gambling Management Commission has already begun internal redrafting of its licensing conditions to align with the new criminal regime, and the National Bank of Cambodia will issue updated AML guidance for licensed casino operators within 60 days.
What the law does — and what it does not
The accountability gap that observers continue to flag is that arrests under the existing enforcement regime have been concentrated at compound-worker level. Over 30,000 deportations have been processed since June 2025, and more than 1,100 mostly-foreign nationals were detained in raids between April 1 and April 6 alone, with thousands of phones and hundreds of computers seized. But the operators, license holders, and political networks behind those compounds have not faced criminal action. Amnesty International's April 2026 report — the most-cited independent assessment to date — noted that the new law's senior-tier penalties (life imprisonment, US$250,000 fines) exist on paper but have no Cambodian-side prosecutorial precedent. The OFAC designation remains the only public-record action against a senior figure.
For surveillance and compliance professionals, the operational read is that the licensed Cambodian casino segment is effectively unbankable through most U.S. and EU correspondent institutions. Enhanced due diligence will be the floor, not the ceiling, even for properties with no scam-compound association.
The 91 closures: where they sit
The 91 casino licenses revoked over the prior nine months are concentrated in Sihanoukville (54 properties), Poipet on the Thai border (22), and Bavet on the Vietnamese border (15). Most operated under the compound model — fenced complexes mixing online-scam call centres with licensed gaming tables — and most have already been physically dismantled or repurposed. Cross-border KYC sharing arrangements with China, Vietnam and Thailand are now operational and being expanded.
NagaCorp remains the public-data anchor
NagaCorp's compliance posture sits entirely outside the revoked properties. The HKEX-listed operator's FY2025 results (filed March 12) showed group revenue at US$709.7 million (+26.2%) and net profit at US$309.9 million versus US$109.6 million a year prior. The Q1 2026 voluntary trading update, expected April 8, will be the first post-law-passage signal of whether the new regime is constraining or supporting the legitimate segment. Goldman Sachs upgraded NagaCorp last week citing the broader Cambodia tourism recovery as a tailwind.
Sources
Cambodian National Assembly Anti-Technology Fraud Law (passed 3 April 2026); Al Jazeera coverage (3 April 2026); Amnesty International Cambodia briefing (April 2026); Cambodia Commercial Gambling Management Commission license registry; U.S. Treasury OFAC Recent Actions; NagaCorp HKEX FY2025 Annual Results (12 March 2026).