A Cambodian reporter who exposed scams charged over online posts

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — A Cambodian investigative reporter who exposed online scams and corruption was charged on Tuesday with a criminal offense that could land him in prison for two years for material he posted on social media.

Freelance reporter Mech Dara was arrested Monday by military police at a toll booth as he was returning with his family to the capital Phnom Penh from a seaside holiday.

Ei Rin, a spokesperson for the Phnom Penh Municipal Court, told The Associated Press that Mech Dara was charged with incitement to commit a felony or cause social disorder for items he posted online on four days in late September.

The penalty for the offense is imprisonment for six months to two years, along with a fine. He said Mech Dara was sent to pre-trial detention at Kandal provincial prison outside the capital.

The arrest was condemned by journalists who worked with him as well as from press freedom and rights groups.

“Cambodian authorities must release and drop criminal incitement charges against investigative journalist Mech Dara,” said the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.

Shawn Crispin, senior Southeast Asia representative for the Committee to Protect Journalists, said Mech Dara’s arrest shows “just how far Cambodia’s government is willing to go to squelch independent reporting,”

About four dozen Cambodian media organizations and civil society groups issued a joint statement calling for his immediate release and to “stop all forms of harassment against media organizations and journalists.”

The statement praised Mech Dara as “a front-line investigative journalist whose stories over the last decade have uncovered corruption, environmental destruction, and human trafficking at scam compounds across the country, and has consistently pushed for accountability and justice.”

The U.S. State Department honored Mech Dara as a 2023 Trafficking in Persons Report Hero for his work exposing the problem.

Mech Dara previously worked as a journalist for the Cambodia Daily and the Phnom Penh Post, two once-vibrant English-language newspapers forced to shut down under government pressure, and the V oice of Democracy radio and website, which was closed by the government last year.

The Paris-based group Reporters Without Borders in its latest report ranked Cambodia 151st out of 180 in its international press freedom index.

The immediate action that appeared to trigger Mech Dara’s arrest was his posting of two photos from the southeastern province of Prey Veng that seemed to suggest that a revered mountain with a Buddhist pagoda on top was being destroyed by quarrying stone from it.

Prey Veng officials issued a statement on Facebook denying that was the case. They called on the Information Ministry to take legal action against him.

Although he has written about the environment, Mech Dara is better known for reporting on human trafficking connected to online scam operations. They involve people who are tricked into signing up for what they believe are legitimate jobs in Cambodia, only to find themselves in virtual slavery in tightly guarded compounds where they are forced to swindle online users.

In a scam known as “pig butchering,” they are taught to slowly build up a relationship of trust with their targets, often involving romance, before convincing them to hand over large amounts of money for fake investments. The practice has been going on for several years, based mostly in Cambodia and Myanmar, and recently has drawn heightened legal attention in the United States, where people have been cheated out of millions of dollars.

The United States in September imposed economic sanctions on one of Cambodia’s top tycoons because of allegations tying him to forced labor, human trafficking and lucrative online scams.

Ly Yong Phat, one of Cambodia’s richest men, is also a Cambodian senator and a leading member of the ruling Cambodian People’s Party of Prime Minister Hun Manet. Cambodia’s Foreign Ministry expressed “deep regret over the unjust decision” to sanction Ly Yong Phat and suggested that the action could hurt bilateral relations.

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Associated Press writer Peck in Bangkok contributed to this report.

Sopheng Cheang And Grant Peck, The Associated Press