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The Interior Ministry said Wednesday it will look into a woman identified as a member of the national police bodyguard unit after she appeared in an Al Jazeera documentary in which alleged scam boss Deng Pibing described himself as her boss.
The woman, identified by Al Jazeera as Cheat Mony, appears several times in the documentary alongside Deng. Touch Sokhak, a deputy Interior Ministry spokesperson, told CamboJA News the ministry is inquiring into people shown in the documentary allegedly working for Deng, and said Mony’s connection to Deng was unclear.
“The National Bodyguard Unit and specialized unit will look at the facts, accumulating evidence to find the truth,” Sokhak said.
He said the inquiry would determine whether her past connection to Deng was legal and whether she knew about his alleged involvement in scam operations.
Authorities will also examine a conversation with alleged scam syndicate members featured in the documentary to determine whether it concerned fraud operations, he said.
“If so, that alleged individual will be held accountable according to the law,” he said.
The 24-minute documentary by Al Jazeera’s “101 East” program, posted Saturday, used hidden cameras to film Deng, a Chinese-born businessman who obtained Cambodian citizenship in 2016, according to gazette records. Undercover reporters posing as representatives of an online gambling business were shown around the Long Bay development in the Dara Sakor area of Koh Kong province, where they documented alleged online scam operations, drug use and police protection.
Britain sanctioned Deng’s ZhengHeng Group in 2023, saying people had been held at its Long Bay premises and forced to work as scammers.
In the footage, Deng said he funded a police station and paid officers’ salaries. He also drove the reporters around in a vehicle bearing police markings. The Interior Ministry did not confirm if the vehicle was a genuine police vehicle, but suggested to local media that the markings could be faked.
Al Jazeera described Mony as Deng’s Cambodian employee. Deng told an undercover reporter in Chinese, “I am her boss.” He said Yim Leang, a deputy national police commissioner who oversees the bodyguard department, “is also her boss.”
Mony said in the footage: “You’re my big brother. He’s my boss. I am serving my big brother.”
The documentary also identified Yim Leang’s brother, Yim Leak, as a business partner of Deng, and showed Mony accompanying Deng to meetings with government officials, including former Prime Minister Hun Sen.
Chhay Sinarith, head of the Commission for Combating Online Scams, said Wednesday that authorities are investigating Deng over Long Bay. He told state media that Deng left Cambodia in late May and, citing unnamed sources, that Interpol has issued a red notice for him.
CamboJA News could not reach Deng for comment. A phone number listed for him under ZhengHeng Group in corporate records was disconnected.
Al Jazeera did not say when the footage was filmed. The government has said the activity shown predates its yearlong crackdown on scam operations, which it says has shut down all industrial fraud compounds in the country and led to the deportation of tens of thousands of scam workers.
Experts have criticized the crackdown for failing to prosecute senior officials allegedly involved in or complicit with the industry, and for failing to protect potential trafficking victims who fled compounds or were rounded up in raids.
Jacob Sims, a visiting fellow at Harvard University’s Asia Center and an expert on transnational crime in the region, said the documentary renewed public attention to Deng’s ties to the “upper echelons of the party-state, including those syndicates with close contacts to the government.”
“This has all been publicly documented for many years and yet, he appears to have felt comfortable remaining in Cambodia conducting criminal activity at-scale until very recently,” he said.
Seng Vanly, an independent Cambodian political analyst, said authorities should launch a formal and transparent investigation into Mony’s activities at Long Bay.
“Denials or clarifications that portray the interactions as legitimate or claim ignorance of the alleged activities are insufficient to restore public confidence or ensure transparency within this national institution,” Vanly said.
He said that if authorities continued to offer excuses or denials through the media, Cambodia could face mounting international pressure and risk further blacklisting, because officials might be seen as lacking the political will to eradicate online scams.