Cambodian crackdown on illegal gambling continues at full throttle

Cambodia has been keen to clean up its reputation. The tarnish is definitely too thick for any wishful thinking, though, as the country has been shunned internationally, with businesses fleeing, capital scarce and visitors nowhere to be seen.

No more says Prime Minister Hun Sen who vowed back in September to do everything in his power to fix his country’s image for a place where human trafficking and illegal gambling thrives.

The efforts put down by the zealous prime minister and his cohorts have been showing, says The Khmer Times, a local media outlet, reporting on the past several months of toil to reduce the number of illegal gambling and arrest anyone linked to these operations.

Since Sen spoke in September, Cambodia has been able to conduct more than 231 crackdowns against illegal gambling businesses, arresting 606 people in the process. Six women were among the arrested suspects, with cases forwarded to courts to make a lasting impact on the country’s seedy underbelly.

Police spokesperson Lieutenant General Chhay Kim Khoeun clarified that the period during which these numbers applied spanned the dates between September 15 through December 27, but that’s not all. Khoeun assured the public that even at this time, authorities are swooping across the country to ensure that they are acting against bad actors who are continuing to undermine Cambodia’s reputation.

Khoeun is confident that these measures are working as well, with the official saying that authorities are now coming across fewer of these cases – no doubt the result of hard policing and targeted sting operations against the main offenders. There is the data to back him up as well, with the Head of the Research and Advocacy Program of the Cambodian Youth Network Association, Heng Kimhong, confirming that the number of cases has indeed decreased.

Kimhong though urges the government and police not to grow complacent with their successes but rather – to keep the pressure on. Authorities must not relax their grip on illegal gambling businesses, as those criminals are no doubt already looking for ways to adapt and conceal their operations, he warns.

Minister of Interior Sar Kheng has urged the government to not relent in its pursuit of illegal gambling. Cambodia, which is on the FATF’s grey list, needs to demonstrate its preparedness to sever its ties to the past which often paid no attention to significant social ills that undermined its international status. This ends now it seems, but only if the country’s police and politicians do not lose their vim for reform. The country has certainly been keen to reform as well.

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