Amnesty Links Cambodian Security Firms to Trafficking, Torture in Scam Compounds

Amnesty International said Thursday that five private security companies with links to Cambodia’s military, police and business elites helped sustain scam compounds where trafficked workers were subjected to forced labor, torture and rape, naming the firms and tying them to specific sites for the first time.

In a report published Oct. 29 titled “Official Business: Security companies and authorities at scamming compounds in Cambodia,” Amnesty said its findings were based on interviews with 151 survivors conducted from January 2023 to September 2026, records involving more than 400 additional victims, and research identifying 86 compounds, 82 of which investigators visited. Amnesty also said researchers geolocated videos from more than 200 security guard TikTok accounts to 23 compounds.

The rights group said the five companies were Leap Somnang, Security Response, ZD Security, formerly known as BIC Security, Dara Security and Best Security. Amnesty said its evidence also linked more than 20 members of the military and police to private security companies and to at least 22 of the 86 compounds it identified.

Among the connections highlighted in the report, Amnesty described Leap Somnang as controlled by Ban Sophat, who it said publicly served as the company’s chairman while also being a colonel in the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces. Amnesty also said an advertisement for Best Security listed phone numbers for Deputy Police Chief Lay Channy, and that Lay Channy was involved in the government crackdown in Bavet, where Amnesty said Best Security guarded a compound. Separately, Amnesty said Brig. Gen. Tek Bunthoeun had a “direct, and potentially controlling, interest” in the property development that included one compound where abuses were documented.

Amnesty said survivors described guards from the companies controlling exits, tracking down escapees, escorting people to punishment rooms and standing watch during sexual assaults. The report alleges guards used or carried electric shock batons, beat people who tried to flee and confined people in “dark rooms,” helping enable trafficking, forced labor, torture, rape and slavery inside the compounds.

“For years, survivors of these nightmarish compounds described encountering members of the Cambodian military or police inside. These accounts could not be independently verified — until now,” Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s secretary general, said in a statement. “When guards escort trafficked people to punishment rooms or stand watch during rape and torture, they are enabling these abuses — and so too are the supposedly legitimate corporate actors who employ them.”

The scam-compound sector in Cambodia has already been the focus of major international law enforcement and financial-crime actions, underscoring that it is a large transnational industry rather than an isolated local abuse story. Amnesty has previously documented the sector, including in a June 2025 report that described slavery, trafficking, torture and child labor, and a June 2026 follow-up that said a government crackdown had failed to deliver adequate victim protection or accountability. The new report’s added finding is that it names security companies and links them to specific compounds and officials.

Amnesty said Ban Sophat denied holding any ownership, director or management role in Leap Somnang and said he had “served as an advisor to the company owner.” According to Amnesty, Security Response denied all allegations. Amnesty also said Best Security denied that Lay Channy controlled the company, while acknowledging that his phone number appeared on a sign, and denied providing services at the Bavet compound Amnesty linked to the firm. Amnesty said it wrote to each company and individual named and included their responses in the report annex.

The rights group said many of the abuses it documented could amount to serious crimes under Cambodian and international law. It called for prompt, independent investigations, scrutiny of serving military and police personnel, and suspension of company licenses where credible allegations exist.

Amnesty said that after Cambodia launched a government crackdown in July 2025, large-scale scam-compound operations “appear to be dormant” now. But it said it was not aware of investigations into the five security companies profiled in the report. In an Oct. 15 response cited by Amnesty, Cambodian authorities said 77 police officers had been disciplined in connection with scam compounds.