October 17, 2025
SEOUL – President Lee Jae Myung’s office seeks to leverage the upcoming ASEAN summit as a venue to propose a multilateral cooperation framework addressing organized crimes in Cambodia, amid a surge in job scams and associated violent offenses targeting South Koreans.
Wi Sung-lac, director of the presidential National Security Office, said in a briefing Thursday that Seoul may bring up the issue in the upcoming summit to be held in Malaysia in late October.
“The ASEAN Summit will be an opportunity to establish a cooperative system, including joint investigations with ASEAN policing authorities,” Wi said.
Wi explained that Seoul was reviewing the possibility of including ways to jointly deal with crimes in Cambodia as one of the discussion items in the ASEAN summit.
“Of course, this would be a major issue. Many countries are involved, and it may be efficient for the issue to be discussed at a multilateral meeting,” Wi said.
Wi further underscored that similar discussions could also be arranged in multinational organizations such as the United Nations and the Organization for the Economic Cooperation and Development.
Wi said such joint actions are crucial given that the emerging threat of transnational crimes cannot be solved, describing the online scams which have surged significantly in Southeast Asia as organized crimes involving some 200,000 people across the world.
“In order to uproot the crimes, cooperation with not only Cambodia but also neighboring or relevant countries is crucial,” he said.
It is South Korea’s latest gesture toward efforts dealing with a surge in cases of Koreans lured by fake job offers and subjected to related crimes, including kidnapping and forced confinement.
Wi’s remarks came as South Korea’s interagency team met Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet on Thursday to discuss the return of about 60 Koreans detained in scam-related abductions, and to strengthen coordination in addressing job scams and crimes targeting Korean nationals.
The government delegation, led by Second Vice Foreign Minister Kim Jin-a, made an urgent trip to Cambodia at the instruction of President Lee Jae Myung.
According to Seoul’s Foreign Ministry, the delegation — which includes officials from the National Police Agency and the National Intelligence Service — also met senior Cambodian officials from a special committee under the prime minister’s office. The two sides discussed the rise in scam-linked kidnapping and confinement cases, exchanged information, and coordinated joint countermeasures.
According to data from South Korea’s Foreign Ministry, about 80 cases remain open among reports of Koreans who entered Cambodia and were later reported missing or forcibly confined. The ministry received 330 such reports between January and August 2025 and 220 cases in 2024, most of which — about 260 this year and 210 last year — have since been resolved.
However, officials warn that the actual number of Korean victims may be far higher. Seoul’s National Intelligence Service has estimated that more than 1,000 South Koreans were believed to be held in scam compounds in Cambodia.
A separate investigation is also being conducted by the Korean police over the death of a Korean woman.
Police announced Wednesday that the woman in her 30s was discovered on Oct. 8 in southern Vietnam near the Cambodian border. The local police have conducted an autopsy to determine the exact cause of death, and her body has reportedly been handed over to her family.
Police, who launched a preliminary investigation before a formal case filing, shared that they plan to look into whether the woman was connected to the overseas phishing scams that have recently surged in the region.
