By: Thai Scam Watch
In April, Thai Police Lt. Gen. Jirabhop “Kong” Bhuridej, boss of the Thai government’s new “Anti Cyber Scam Center,” was photographed having lunch in a Bangkok restaurant with a notorious Cambodian cyberscam center operator, Rithy Raksmei. The photograph, initially dated May 2025, soon went viral and left Jirabhop looking decidedly red-faced.
The photograph raised immediate questions about the nature of the meeting and the identity of those present. Raksmei, for instance, was directly sanctioned by the US govt in April 2026 for his involvement in criminal cyberscam operations. The Thai police and ACSC responded quickly with a press release that stated that the get-together was a bilateral meeting between Thai and Cambodian law enforcement. They also stated that the meeting took place in November 2024, not May 2025.
The fact is that Thailand has largely escaped widespread notice of its deep entanglement in the cyberscam ecosystem as its immediate neighbors Cambodia and Myanmar have reaped massive negative publicity. The country is thought to act as a major transit point for human trafficking, a base for money laundering networks, and a victim of staggering domestic fraud. Jirabhop ‘s presence at that lunch is evidence that the presence of cyberscam networks is bolstered by corruption, with organized crime elements deeply intertwined with local officials and foreign syndicates.
The question that remains completely unanswered by the Thai police was what someone as notorious as Rithy Raksmei was doing at an important bilateral meeting. This failure to even mention Raksmei in the press release inevitably led to further negative speculation. Other Cambodians were at that November 2024 lunch meeting as well – the two most prominent being two Deputy Commissioner Generals of the Cambodian National Police, Neth Sovoeun, who is also Deputy Prime Minister of Cambodia – and Sam Vannvirak.
The attendance of senior Cambodian police officials gave some credence to the Thai police’s explanation but, given that Raksmei’s involvement in operating Cambodian-based cyber scam centers had been known for years - the US government’s 2026 sanctions press release makes it clear Raksmei had been operating since 2019. What was Raksmei doing there? Another individual at the meeting was former Thai Police General Visanu Prasatthong-Osoth. However, if we accept the Thai police’s November 2024 date for the “bilateral meeting” by that point Visanu, who had retired from the Thai police in late 2023, was no longer a serving officer.
In fact, in November 2024, Visanu was serving as the Chairman of Airports of Thailand (AOT). And once again we come to the same question, only this time with a different name and two queries. In the first instance, what was the Chairman of one of Thailand’s most important state enterprises doing at a bilateral meeting to discuss law enforcement issues, and secondly, what was the Chairman of AOT doing meeting known cyber scam center operators?
Despite an earlier request to AOT’s press team from the authors of this article, there’s been no explanation as to why the Chairman of AOT was at this meeting. And the Thai police have offered no explanation either.
Of course, the usual outcome of a serious bilateral meeting between the law officials of two nations wouldn’t be random photographs released 18months later of various police officers, a company chairman and a wanted cyber scam center criminal all sitting down for lunch together. In most circumstances, there’d be official joint statements, press announcements before and after the event, memorandums of understanding, notes of the meeting, etc. None of this exists, and it seems the official bilateral meeting between Thai and Cambodia law enforcement held in a Bangkok restaurant in November 2024 only came into existence once photographs of it emerged on the CSI LA Facebook page in 2026
However, there’s more. Our blog - thaiscamwatch.blogspot.com - has recently published a troubling photograph of the Chairman of AOT, Police General Visanu, meeting another notorious cyber scam operator, Ly Yong Phat. The photograph dates from sometime in 2024 - with the most likely date being Aug 2024 - and was taken at the Phnom Penh Hotel in the Cambodian capital. By September 2024, Ly Yong Phat was placed on the sanctions list by the US Government for his involvement in the cyber scam industry. As the US Government press release states, several of Ly Yong Phat’s cyber scam compounds had been raided both in 2022 and early 2024 prior to the sanctions being placed. As was made clear above, in 2024, Visanu was the Chairman of AOT.
While a photograph in and of itself of the Chairman of AOT meeting yet another well-known cyber scam operator is not evidence of any wrongdoing, it should’ve certainly raised concerns at a board level within the company due to the reputational damage it could cause to a publicly listed company. AOT, whilst majority-owned by the Thai Government, has other shareholders and investors to whom it is answerable. One of AOT’s shareholders is the Government Pension Fund of Norway (usually referred to as the Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund) who supposedly has an “ethical” investment policy. Are they aware that the Chairman of AOT was repeatedly hanging out with criminals involved in running enterprises that human rights organisations’ investigations reveal include rape, torture, murder and human trafficking?
Directorships at large companies during and post-career for senior Thai Police and military officers like Visanu are considered to be an expected “perk” of their rank. Thailand’s company boards are stuffed full of generals, admirals and air marshals. Even the aforementioned Jirabhop, while currently serving in a senior and very important role as head of the cybercrime unit, is also on the board of directors at both AOT and the retail arm of Thai energy giants, PTT. Needless to say, both Visanu and Kong have built up significant personal wealth that far outstrips what they could acquire from their police salaries/pensions, collecting expensive cars, watches, jewelry, weapons, boats, and property. And that’s just what they’ve publicly declared.
In the background to all this are the thousands of victims of the cyber scam operators. As Amnesty International’s recent report, Falling Through the Cracks: Cambodia’s ‘Crackdown’ on Scamming Compounds and the Victims it has Failed, makes clear the cyber scam industry perpetuates gross human rights violations, with confinement, human trafficking, rape, torture and murder all being proven, along with financial crimes being perpetrated against victims in the USA and other wealthier nations. In July 2025, Cambodian PM Hun Manet stated that Cambodian authorities were committed to cracking down on the cyber scam industry and engaged in a number of raids on compounds owned by, among others, Ly Yong Phat.
Which brings us back to another name/face in the photographs alluded to above: Deputy Commissioner General of the Cambodian National Police, Lt. Gen. Sam Vannvirak. Vannvirak is present at both the November 2024 lunch gathering in Bangkok with Rithy Raksmei and the Phnom Penh Hotel soiree with Ly Yong Phat and Visanu. It seems infeasible, given that both Raksmei and Ly Yong Phat’s criminal activities were well-known to the Cambodian police as far back as 2019, that Vannvirak didn’t know who they both were.
The photographs, the official statements, and the publicly available evidence leave a series of troubling and, so far, unanswered questions. They do not, however, amount to definitive proof of wrongdoing on the part of the Thai nationals named in this article.
What they do reveal is a pattern of unexplained associations, inconsistent official accounts and repeated encounters with individuals who, according to US government sanctions and other public reporting, occupied central positions within Cambodia’s cyber scam industry.
That pattern inevitably gives rise to speculation about corruption and collusion — speculation that many observers would argue is not entirely unreasonable given the Royal Thai Police’s long-standing reputation for corruption and Thailand’s recent decline in international corruption rankings.
Thaiscamwatch.blogspot.com has chosen to remain anonymous, saying it is concerned individuals who believe these unanswered questions deserve public scrutiny, and who are committed to exposing organized criminal networks and the corruption that enables them. Asia Sentinel agreed to publish periodic articles from the group.
all of these countries take their cues from actions by countries being scammed.
e.g., america is more focused on ensuring leeway for more politically-aligned insider corruption in their own country. simple complaints about corruption originating elsewhere does nothing.