Mu Sochua presses UK and US on Cambodia scam centres

Mu Sochua urges the UK to go further than sanctions on Cambodia’s scam centres, linking crackdown efforts to restoring democracy and protecting victims.

A Cambodian opposition figure with deep ties to the human-rights movement is using her push inside the UK Parliament to argue that sanctions alone will not dismantle Cambodia’s “industrial-scale” scam centres.

Mu Sochua. who is president of the Khmer Movement for Democracy (KMD) and has been living in self-exile in the United States since 2017. is on an international mission aimed at shutting down the sprawling operations in south-east Asia that lure people with fraudulent messages about investing. account takeovers. and fake bank or software support.

The scam centres, she argues, are not just a criminal nuisance but an enterprise sustained by political decisions.. “There would not be scam centres on this scale – with torture and human rights abuses – if it was in a country with the rule of law. ” she says. linking their survival to a lack of free and fair elections. independent institutions. and independent media in Cambodia.

Her message to UK lawmakers comes as the United Kingdom and the United States have already moved to target key figures and firms connected to the scam centres.. In October 2025. the UK and US announced sanctions on Chen Zhi. chairman of the Prince Group conglomerate that built some of the facilities and was implicated in laundering proceeds. alongside a network of associated companies.. Additional sanctions followed in March against other groups and individuals tied to the scam operations.

The sanctions have been accompanied by asset freezes. including properties held via British Virgin Islands company structures and investments in London real estate.. Mu argues that freezing assets is only one step.. Ministers, she says, should ensure money derived from the frozen assets is directed toward supporting victims of abuse in Cambodia.

To make her case, she draws a parallel to how immobilised Russian assets have been used to support Ukraine. In her view, the logic should be similar: financial pressure and restrictions should be paired with concrete relief for people harmed by the systems running the scam centres.

Mu also points to what she sees as gaps in accountability.. She says no sanctions have been levelled against members of the Cambodian government. citing reported ownership of London properties by close family members of deputy prime minister Neth Savoeun.. She further argues that the absence of pressure on political elites is echoed by their continued access to UK institutions.

Her remarks highlight education pathways for members of the ruling circle.. She notes that, last month, the son of another deputy prime minister, Hun Many, graduated from Sandhurst military academy.. Mu frames this as evidence of how well-prepared the children of Cambodia’s leadership appear to be for future power. and she argues that those pathways extend to the UK and the United States.

The argument is closely tied to elections and democratic rights.. The UK Foreign Office has expressed regret that Cambodia’s most recent election in 2023 was “neither free nor fair. ” citing disqualification of the main opposition party.. Mu says the wider environment has not changed enough to expect a meaningful break from the scam centres without a restoration of democratic governance.

“Look how well-prepared they are to give the top education to their children,” she says, adding that the political elite appears to be preparing successors abroad.

Mu’s personal history fuels the urgency of her campaign.. She served as a minister in the Cambodian government from 1998 to 2004 and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005 alongside hundreds of women working to advance peace and human rights.. In 2017. after her party leader was arrested on treason charges. Mu says she was forced to flee after being tipped off that she would be next.

She recalls having less than 10 hours to pack, with no chance to say goodbye to her family, and she says she has not been able to return since.

While she pushes lawmakers to confront the scam centres, Mu also makes a broader claim about the consequences for global security. She says the operations are part of a wider ecosystem of criminal activity.

Central to that wider network is the role of Cambodia’s digital payments and finance channels.. She points to Huione Pay. describing it as being used not only to launder money linked to scams but also to launder cryptocurrency stolen by North Korean hackers. which she says may help support Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions.. She adds that Huione Pay was closed in December last year.

Mu says her own attempts to return to Cambodia have been blocked, including through cancellation of her Cambodian passport.

Still, her campaign is not limited to sanctions and parliamentary meetings. Through KMD, she says the organisation is setting up an elected overseas citizens assembly intended to give Cambodians living inside and outside the country a formal channel to speak for an alternative democratic future.

“We are for national reconciliation,” she says, describing her goal as returning home, while arguing that a platform for representation and unity will be feasible if international engagement returns in the framework of the 1991 Paris Peace Agreements.

Those agreements, she argues, were meant to guarantee Cambodia’s democracy “in perpetuity,” making her stance on leverage sharper.. As she meets officials across multiple countries over the past year. she presses governments that signed the Paris Peace Accords to align their economic ties with human-rights and democratic benchmarks.

Her position is that countries should not condemn the scam centres while continuing to import from Cambodia’s supply chains without challenging labour exploitation and related abuses.. She singles out the UK. the EU and the US. pointing to a “huge market” for Cambodian garments. and argues that the leverage held by trade partners should be used more forcefully than what she characterises as “soft diplomacy.”

“There is a moment where you have Cambodia down on its knees – don’t let go,” she says, describing the current period as one in which pressure could force changes if sustained.

UK officials, however, have not engaged directly with her remarks about wider policy.. The Foreign Office declined to comment on her claims and instead directed attention to the sanctions announcements connected to entities and individuals tied to the scam centres.. The Cambodian government also did not respond to a request for comment.

The international push is intersecting with domestic legal action in Cambodia.. After UK sanctions in March, Cambodia’s parliament passed its first law targeting scam centres in April.. Under the legislation described here. scams carried out by gangs or against many victims can be punished with prison terms of up to 10 years and fines up to $250. 000.. The law also outlines penalties for money laundering, gathering victims’ data, or recruiting scammers.

Cambodia’s justice minister, Koeut Rith, said at the time the law was designed to be “strict” in preventing online scams in Cambodia. Mu’s contention is that enforcement must be accompanied by political change; without it, she believes the networks can regenerate.

For now. her campaign inside Westminster and beyond keeps pointing back to the same core message: if Cambodia’s leadership tolerates conditions that allow large-scale abuse. dismantling the scam centres requires more than asset freezes and arrests.. It requires sustained international pressure tied to the democratic commitments that, in her view, remain unfulfilled.

Mu Sochua Cambodia scam centres UK sanctions US sanctions Khmer Movement for Democracy Westminster Paris Peace Agreements