Fraudsters running cyberscam operations in the country could face life in prison after the Senate approved a new law targeting criminals involved in the multibillion-dollar illicit industry.
Operated out of fortified compounds across the region, the global cyberscam industry has reached “industrial proportions”, with estimates of its annual revenues as high as US$64bil (RM258bil), according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.
Under the law, ringleaders of cyberscam centres that engage in human trafficking, detention and torture will face up to 20-year prison sentences and a fine of up to two billion riel (RM2mil).
If their operations lead to the death of one or more people, scam centre bosses could face life in prison.
“Our goal is to eliminate scams,” justice minister Koeut Rith said.
A draft of the law was initially approved by the government in March.
A joint statement by UN experts in May said that “hundreds of thousands of people of various nationalities are trapped and forced to carry out online fraud”.
Several countries have enacted anti-cyberscam laws to combat the rise of online fraud, romance and cryptocurrency scams, with con artists in Singapore facing 24 strokes of caning for serious cases. — AFP
