Cambodia Strips Roxy Casino of Its Licence Over Online Fraud Links

Cambodian regulators have pulled the operating licence of Roxy Casino in Bavet City after an investigation uncovered ties between the venue and online fraud operations, according to local reports.

The move is the latest in Cambodia's intensifying campaign against scam compounds and illegal online crime networks, a problem that has drawn mounting international scrutiny in recent years.

Licence cancelled after on-site inspection

The Commercial Gambling Management Commission of Cambodia (CGMC) revoked the casino's licence on Thursday, following an inspection conducted on 21 May, local newspaper The Phnom Penh Post reported.

The inspection formed part of a broader push targeting scam compounds nationwide — a crackdown driven by growing pressure from international bodies and human rights groups over alleged criminal activity at certain gambling venues. According to reports, investigators found evidence linking Roxy Casino to online fraud, prompting regulators to withdraw its right to operate.

25 Chinese nationals detained

During the raid, authorities detained 25 Chinese nationals and confiscated a range of items, including computers, mobile phones, vehicles and other electronic equipment. Officials say subsequent analysis of the seized devices confirmed connections between the casino and online fraud schemes.

The probe has since widened beyond the casino floor. The CGMC has asked the Cambodia Financial Intelligence Unit (CAFIU) for information on bank accounts tied to the casino's operator, Radiant Pearl Investment Limited, and has also requested details of accounts linked to previous licence holders as it examines potential financial trails in the case.

According to the regulator's notice, carried by The Phnom Penh Post, the revocation was issued as Decision No. 048 CGMC dated 11 June and cancels the licence held by parent company Radiant Pearl Investment Limited. The 21 May inspection was carried out by provincial and town officials together with the Secretariat of the National Committee for Combating Online Scams, and the equipment taken from the property included digital video recorders used to store security camera footage. Whatever the Financial Intelligence Unit turns up on the bank accounts is to be handed to prosecutors at the Svay Rieng Provincial Court. The commission also used the decision to warn owners and operators of integrated resorts and other licensed gambling venues to stay within the law and keep clear of scam operations.

A string of revocations in 2026

Roxy is far from the first casino to lose its right to operate this year. In early April the CGMC revoked the licence of the Shang Hai Resort casino in Svay Rieng province's Chantrea district, under a decision dated 3 April, after a raid on 1 April uncovered a scam centre on the premises. The commission said 107 foreign nationals of four nationalities, 26 of them women, were detained, and the cancelled licence dated back to July 2022.

It was not an isolated case. According to CamboJA News, the CGMC reported at least eight casino licence revocations between April and early May across Preah Sihanouk, Battambang, Banteay Meanchey and Svay Rieng provinces, among them Jin Yu Man Tang Casino, Xin Hao Peak Casino, Eagle King Casino and Golden Galaxy Casino. More than 1,100 people, mostly foreigners, were detained in the related raids. The outlet also noted that no criminal charges against casino owners had been announced.

The regulator had already begun using suspensions in late 2025. By a decision dated 16 October, the CGMC suspended the licences of four casinos in Preah Sihanouk linked to the sanctioned Jin Bei Group, which police shuttered on 2 November. Around the same time it suspended the licence of the Silver Star Casino in Bavet after a scam compound was found on site and 23 foreign nationals were detained.

A crackdown fuelled by international pressure

Cambodia has stepped up its efforts against scam compounds amid international alarm over reports of human trafficking, forced labour, torture and online fraud allegedly run out of some casino properties and entertainment complexes.

Amnesty International has been critical of how the Cambodian government has handled the issue. In a report published earlier this year, the rights organisation questioned why casinos with documented links to trafficking and abuse continued to receive official approval. In April, it named 12 Cambodian casinos whose licences had been renewed by the CGMC in December 2025 and January 2026 despite what it described as recent evidence of human rights abuses at those sites. Roxy Casino was not among the venues on that list.

Amnesty's April investigation matched CGMC-approved site maps against satellite imagery and survivor testimony. Two of the venues it highlighted are in Bavet: the Crown Bavet Casino and The New Venetian Casino, where survivors described being confined and abused.

The government points to the scale of its campaign. The drive rests on Command No. 01, issued on 14 July 2025, and by its own figures authorities shut 91 casinos and more than 250 suspected scam sites between July 2025 and mid-April 2026, deporting over 13,000 foreigners. The CGMC had listed 160 operating casinos in 2025, most of them in Sihanoukville, Bavet and Poipet. Prime Minister Hun Manet had pledged to rid the country of scam operations by the end of April, though officials subsequently played the deadline down as a rumour and insisted enforcement would continue with no end date. The United Nations has estimated that scam compounds in the region depend on at least 300,000 workers, many of them trafficked or coerced.

Critics say closing venues is not enough without prosecutions of the people behind them.

Roxy Casino's roots in Bavet City

Roxy Casino opened in mid-2014 in Bavet City, a prominent gambling hub on Cambodia's border with Vietnam. Its location — roughly 87 kilometres from Ho Chi Minh City and about 160 kilometres from Phnom Penh — was chosen to draw Vietnamese visitors.

The town has also become one of the country's best-known scam hubs. In November 2025, police raided two suspected compounds in Bavet and arrested 658 people, most of them foreigners; at a single complex of nine twin buildings on Kampong Spean Road, officers rounded up 601 people, including 509 Vietnamese nationals. According to police, the Kampong Spean Road operation ran online frauds presented to victims as lucrative investment opportunities.

At its grand opening in August 2014, the complex was owned by Cell Aquaculture Ltd, a company listed on the Australian Securities Exchange.

The revocation stands as one of the most recent enforcement actions by Cambodian regulators as they continue to investigate alleged online fraud operations connected to gambling venues across the country.