Mech Dara, reporter who exposed human trafficking in cyber scams, arrested in Cambodia, rights groups say

An award-winning Cambodian freelance journalist – known for his reporting on human trafficking in the cyber scam industry – was arrested on Monday, according to the independent Cambodian Journalists Alliance Association (CamboJA).

Last year, the U.S. Department of State honored Mech Dara as a hero of the 2023 Trafficking in Persons Report for his work to expose the problem.

The activity involves tricking people into signing up for what they believe are legitimate jobs Cambodiaand then limit themselves to connections where they target people all over the world online.

US law enforcement has recently increased their focus on scam operations in Cambodia due to the large number of Americans who have lost millions of dollars.

Authorities made the arrest after stopping a car he was traveling in with his family, CamboJA said in a statement.

Mr Dara reportedly managed to send a text message to the rights group Licadho saying military police were arresting him before his phone was seized.

A day before his arrest, Dara posted images on social media intended to show a revered tourist site being demolished to make way for a quarry in Prey Veng province. Local authorities labeled the now-deleted images as ‘fake news’.

On Monday, the Prey Veng provincial government issued a statement denouncing his position and accusing him of “attempting to cause social disorder or confusion,” which could be prosecuted as a criminal offence.

The province also called on the Ministry of Information to take legal action against him.

Mr Dara’s arrest has raised concerns among human rights activists – Jacob Sims, a founding member of Operation Shamrock, a global coalition working to disrupt the organized cybercrime epidemic in Southeast Asia, said: “Dara is one of the The country’s last remaining independent journalists and the one who has focused most recently on alleged state-related transnational crime.

“Right now this is an enforced disappearance case. No one has been able to verify or confirm his whereabouts or safety, and until that happens, that is of the utmost importance.”

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Mr Dara has used his social media to highlight the spread of ‘scam farms’, which entice people around the world to part with huge sums of money and fuel human trafficking through the region.

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