The United States has imposed sanctions on Ly Yong Phat, a Cambodian tycoon linked to illegal online gambling.
The sanctions were conducted under the Global Magnitsky Act and include Ly, his conglomerate L.Y.P. Group Co., Ltd, and O-Smach Resort ‘for their role in serious human rights abuse related to the treatment of trafficked workers subjected to forced labor in online scam centers’.
The US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is also designating the Cambodia-based Garden City Hotel, Koh Kong Resort, and Phnom Penh Hotel ‘for being owned or controlled by Ly’.
Speaking of the sanction, Acting Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Bradley T. Smith noted that “Today’s action underscores our commitment to hold accountable those involved in human trafficking and other abuses, while also disrupting their ability to operate investment fraud schemes that target countless unsuspecting individuals, including Americans.”
A recent Trafficking in Persons Report (TIP) by the US government indicated that there were ‘abuses in Cambodia, including in the towns of O’Smach and Ko Kong, in particular’.
The O-Smach Resort has been under investigation for more than two years, finding that ‘Victims reported being lured to O-Smach Resort with false employment opportunities, having their phones and passports confiscated upon arrival, and being forced to work scam operations.’
Ly, the L.Y.P. Group, and O-Smach Resort are being designated as ‘foreign persons who are responsible for or complicit in, or have directly or indirectly engaged in serious human rights abuse’.
Similarly, the Garden City Hotel, Koh Kong Resort, and Phnom Penh Hotel are designated for ‘being owned or controlled by, or having acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, Ly’.
The sanctions mean that ‘all property and interests in property of the designated persons […] that are in the United States or in the possession or control of US persons are blocked and must be reported to OFAC’. This also applies to entities 50 percent owned by the entities. They also prohibit financial institutions from engaging with the sanctioned entities.
