Cambodia's Anti-Tech-Fraud Law Enters Force as 91 Casino Licenses Revoked, but Operator Accountability Question Remains Open

Cambodia's parliament passed the country's first comprehensive anti-technology-fraud law on April 3, 2026, with a 58-vote affirmative — a structural shift from a year of executive-action enforcement to a codified criminal regime. The law establishes tiered penalties: online scam 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 activities result in fatalities face fifteen to thirty years or life imprisonment. Five new criminal offences are codified, covering cybercrime, scam direction, recruitment and training, malicious personal-data collection, and specialised money laundering. The law took effect on April 17 following Royal Assent from King Norodom Sihamoni.

On May 5, the Cambodian government formally designated the combat of scam-running casinos as a top national priority, citing reputational risk to legitimate sectors. Over the preceding nine months, the Commercial Gambling Management Commission has revoked 91 casino licenses out of what had been a 160-property landscape in 2025. Recent enforcement concentrates on Sihanoukville, Bavet and Poipet — the three centres of compound-style operations. Between April and the first week of May alone, eight licenses were revoked across raids that detained more than 1,100 mostly-foreign nationals and seized thousands of phones and hundreds of computers used in online fraud. Total deportations since June 2025 now exceed 30,000.

The accountability gap that observers keep flagging

Amnesty International's April 2026 report on the enforcement campaign articulated the criticism most often raised by independent observers and the trade press: arrests are concentrated at compound-worker level, but operators, license-holders, and the political networks behind those operations have not faced criminal action. The U.S. Treasury's October 2024 OFAC designation of Senator Kok An and 28 linked entities froze roughly US$700 million in cryptocurrency tied to the Chen Zhi network, but no domestic prosecutions of the Cambodian-side principals have followed. The pattern is consistent with the earlier Sihanoukville crackdown of 2019–2020, when license revocations were not accompanied by senior-level accountability.

For surveillance and compliance professionals tracking correspondent banking and KYC exposure, the operational read is that the licensed Cambodian casino segment is effectively unbankable through most U.S. and EU correspondent institutions. Even properties with no scam-compound association face enhanced due diligence. Cross-border KYC sharing arrangements with China, Vietnam and Thailand are now operational.

NagaCorp remains the public-data anchor

NagaCorp's FY2025 results, filed via the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in March, anchor what little public visibility exists into the Cambodian licensed casino market. Group revenue reached US$709.7 million (+26.2% YoY), with NagaWorld GGR up 27.4% to US$691.6 million and net profit at US$309.9 million versus US$109.6 million a year earlier. EBITDA margin expanded to 57.0%, net margin to 43.7%. NagaWorld's compliance posture — entirely separate from any of the revoked properties — is what allows the company to maintain HKEX-tier audit standards and correspondent banking relationships.

The displaced-capital path: Vietnam's pilot expansion

A second-order effect of Cambodia's crackdown is capital flow into Vietnam's expanding domestic-entry pilot. Vietnamese citizens meeting eligibility criteria have been permitted to enter the Phu Quoc and Ho Tram casino complexes since 26 November 2025, with the Grand Ho Tram property formally admitting locals from 5 January 2026 under the 2017 pilot framework. The Ministry of Finance is drafting an expansion to three additional venues for cabinet review in Q3 2026. Corona Resort & Casino Phu Quoc remains loss-making (accumulated losses exceed VND 5.8 trillion, or roughly US$220 million), but the structural shift — domestic players accounted for 88% of total casino revenue in the 2019–2024 window despite making up only 52% of visitors — gives the pilot durable demand. Sun Group, Vingroup and several foreign operators are circling joint-venture structures.

Sources

Cambodian National Assembly Anti-Technology Fraud Law (passed 3 April 2026); Cambodia Commercial Gambling Management Commission license registry; Al Jazeera coverage of law passage (3 April 2026); Amnesty International Cambodia briefing (April 2026); NagaCorp HKEX FY2025 Annual Results (12 March 2026); Vietnam Ministry of Finance Decree 03/2026; U.S. Treasury OFAC Recent Actions registry (October 2024); IAG / GGRAsia enforcement coverage May 2026.