BANGKOK/PHNOM PENH -- Deeply strained relations between Thailand and Cambodia deteriorated further on Tuesday when Thai police mounted coordinated raids on properties connected to Kok An, a tycoon and four-term Cambodian senator with royal honors close to Senate President Hun Sen.
A warrant was issued on Monday for the arrest of Kok An, the so-called "Godfather of Poipet," a major transnational gambling and scamming town on the border with Thailand.
"This is a significant development bringing down the kind of network which exists across the Mekong," Benedikt Hofmann, acting UNODC representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific in Bangkok, told Nikkei Asia. " It also shows how these networks operate seamlessly across different jurisdictions, taking advantage of the gaps in regional cooperation and cross-border investigations."
All crossings between the two countries are currently closed in the wake of a border dispute concerning an ancient Khmer clifftop temple the Thais call Khao Phra Viharn and Cambodians Prasat Preah Vihear. The rift widened dramatically last month after Hun Sen released a recording of a private conversation with Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra. The recording led to Paetongtarn's suspension by the Constitutional Court for allegedly infringing on national sovereignty with comments about the Thai military -- but not before she had ordered a crackdown on scamming along the border.
Kok An owns a cluster of properties around his Crown Casino Resort in Poipet that directly overlooks Aranyaprathet, a dusty Thai border town. These include an 18-story building from which a Thai national and suspected scammer fell to his death in 2022.
A Thai scammer who escaped back over the border in late 2022 described to Nikkei various scamming operations in the complex, including fake Thai police stations created on the lower floors of the casino building. One sophisticated scam involves alleged policemen -- some of whom are former Thai police with genuine uniforms -- extorting victims by threatening arrest for crimes they did not commit.
"If there's merit to the case, this indicates they have known and have had evidence all along and pretty much allowed the cyber scams to operate with impunity," Ou Virak, political analyst and founder of the think tank Future Forum, told Nikkei. "If there's no merit, this is a political manhunt and likely revenge for the leak of the audio clip between Hun Sen and the Thai Prime Minister. It could be a combination of both."
Cambodian landlords often claim to have no knowledge of the businesses run in their properties. Kok An, 71, is reputed to be one of the wealthiest individuals in Cambodia with diversified interests in gambling, property, alcohol, tobacco, utilities and fisheries.
He was one of 28 Cambodians recommended to face sanctions in an independent report on scamming in Cambodia published in May by Jacob Sims, an American visiting fellow at Harvard University's Asia Center. The list also includes Prime Minister Hun Manet's cousin Hun To; Deputy Prime Minister Sar Sokha, who is also interior minister; and Dy Vichea, deputy national police chief.
Touch Sokhak, spokesperson for Cambodia's Ministry of the Interior, said in a Telegram voice memo that he was not "100% sure" about the allegations against Kok An, and he believed that it could be Thailand's intention to create a strong association between Cambodia and the cyberscam industry.
Sokhak called the action a political move rather than a real attempt at addressing cybercrime. "The crimes that occur in their country have been happening for a long time, and why is it that they have only recently started to subdue them?" he asked.
"This propaganda is intended to divert attention from the political unrest in Thailand. And it's also about diverting attention from the Thai military's invasion of Cambodia and killing the Cambodian soldier in our sovereign territory," he said.
Sokhak said he was not speaking on Kok An's behalf, and added that Cambodia has a multi-agency task force that is responding to online scam businesses.
A representative of Cyber Scam Monitor, a group that documents abuses in the online scam and gambling industries, told Nikkei: "The Thai arrest warrant is the first law enforcement action we are aware of that has targeted a powerful Cambodian actor connected to the online industries, and it is especially stark that in this case he is a ruling party senator."
Thai media reported police raids on 19 properties on Tuesday, and the seizure of luxury cars and 27 million baht ($830,000) in cash in Operation Shut Down Mule Accounts, Hunt Cambodian Capital. Thousands of so-called "mule" accounts at regular Thai and Singaporean retail banks are used as initial gateways to scam people in sophisticated transnational money laundering processes that authorities have so far largely failed to thwart.
Following a search warrant obtained by the Cyber Crime Investigation Bureau on June 26, a key target was a mansion in a gated community in Bang Phli, on the eastern outskirts of Bangkok. It was connected to Kok An's 42-year-old daughter who is reported to have a Thai ID card in the name of Juree Khlongkijjakol. She was said to be in Taiwan.
Kok An did not immediately comment on the raids.
Danielle Keeton-Olsen is a contributing writer
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