PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — A senior official at Cambodia’s Interior Ministry said Wednesday his ministry will cooperate with South Korea over the death of a South Korean student allegedly kidnapped and tortured by a criminal gang in Cambodia.
The body of 22-year-old Park Min-ho was discovered in August in a pickup truck near Bokor Mountain in southern Kampot province. Authorities said he died of a cardiac arrest after being tortured and beaten.
The student had reportedly told his family he was visiting Cambodia for an exhibition in July. Shortly after arriving he was kidnapped by a criminal gang who demanded a $35,000 ransom, South Korean media reported.
On Wednesday South Korea’s Foreign Ministry issued a travel ban for parts of Cambodia including Bokor Mountain in Kampot province, as well as the towns of Bavet and Poipet, on Cambodia’s border with Vietnam and Thailand.
The move follows a surge in cases involving South Korean nationals that has caused growing concerns over cross-border crime and weak law enforcement cooperation between Cambodia and South Korea. Seoul has pressed for stronger cooperation to tackle cases of online scams, kidnappings, and violence targeting Korean nationals.
Cambodia’s National Police said Monday that three men, identified as Li Xingpeng, 35, Zhu Renzhe, 43, and Liu Haoxing, 29, have been charged with murder and online fraud. Police are searching for two other Chinese men on suspicion of the killing.
Touch Sokhak, a spokesman for Cambodia’s interior ministry, said officials will work with South Korea’s government on the prevention of crimes including scams and online gambling.
He said that at least 80 South Koreans were rescued and placed under police protection after a recent crackdown on cyberscam criminals.
Last week authorities also arrested 80 suspects of seven nationalities — most of them Chinese — during a crackdown on a large-scale online fraud operation at an office complex building in Phnom Penh.
Interior Minister Sar Sokha said earlier this month that at least 15,000 foreigners involved in online crimes have been deported from Cambodia over the past two years.
The United Nations and other agencies have estimated that cyber scams, most of them originating from Southeast Asia, earn international criminal gangs billions of dollars annually. The cybercriminals feign friendship or tout phony investment opportunities to cheat targets around the world.
The U.S. government has seized more than $14 billion in bitcoin and charged the founder of a Cambodian conglomerate in a massive cryptocurrency scam, accusing him and unnamed co-conspirators of exploiting forced labor to dupe would-be investors and using the proceeds to purchase yachts, jets and a Picasso painting.
In an indictment unsealed Tuesday, Brooklyn federal prosecutors charged Prince Holding Group chairman Chen Zhi with wire fraud conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy.
Chen was the “mastermind behind a sprawling cyberfraud empire,” Assistant Attorney General John Eisenberg said. U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella called it “one of the largest investment fraud operations in history.”
