One in fourteen UK adults has been defrauded. Most of it comes from abroad
What happened
On 24 September 2026, the Home Office announced that the UK and Cambodia have signed an agreement to work together against online scam centres. The agreement is a Memorandum of Understanding, signed on 23 September by Lord Hanson, the UK's minister for fraud, and His Excellency Sar Sokha, Cambodia's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior. If you have not heard the phrase 'scam centre' before, it is worth knowing what it means. These are large compounds where organised gangs run fraud at industrial scale. Staff work in shifts at banks of computers and phones, working through lists of targets. Some of the people doing the calling have themselves been trafficked and are not free to leave. Under the agreement, the two governments will share more data, run coordinated operations against the gangs, prosecute those responsible and support victims. The UK will also train Cambodian law enforcement in cyber investigation and digital forensics. Both countries will work through the Global Fraud Taskforce to identify suspects, close operations down and trace the money. The Home Office says the work sits within a wider Fraud Strategy backed by £250 million. Lord Hanson said: 'Fraudsters don't respect international borders...agreements like this are vital to reducing the threat to the public.'
Why this matters
Three figures from the announcement explain why this is being treated as a serious problem rather than a nuisance. One in fourteen adults in the UK has been a victim of fraud. One in four UK businesses has experienced it. And over two-thirds of the fraud affecting the UK starts overseas. That last number is the important one. It explains why UK police forces alone cannot fix this. If the person taking your money is in a compound several thousand miles away, and the money moves through accounts in a third country within minutes, a local investigation runs out of road very quickly. It also explains why so many people who report fraud feel nothing happens. Often something does happen — it just cannot reach the people responsible. Agreements like this are how that changes, slowly. Data sharing means a UK case can be matched to a known compound. Training means Cambodian investigators can follow digital evidence. Tracing money flows means the profit can be taken away, which is the only thing these operations genuinely fear. None of this is instant. But 'over two-thirds of fraud comes from abroad' is not a problem that gets solved at home.
What the evidence actually says
It is worth being careful about what this agreement is and is not. It is a Memorandum of Understanding. That is a formal statement of intent to cooperate — not a treaty, and not a law. It commits both sides to work together on data sharing, joint operations, prosecutions and victim support. Whether it makes a measurable difference depends entirely on what happens next. The things listed are concrete enough to be checked later: capacity-building training for Cambodian law enforcement in cyber investigations, digital forensics and investigative procedure; and joint work through the Global Fraud Taskforce to identify suspects, dismantle operations and trace illicit financial flows. On the scale of the UK problem, the figures quoted come from the Home Office itself: one in fourteen adults defrauded, one in four businesses affected, more than two-thirds of fraud originating overseas. What the announcement does not do is tell you how many scam centres exist, how many are in Cambodia specifically, or how much UK money flows to them. Those numbers are genuinely hard to establish, and it is better to say so than to guess. One further point of context. The UK has been building this kind of international work for some time — the Global Fraud Summit earlier in 2026 brought together delegates from well over a hundred countries. This agreement is one more piece of that, not a standalone event.
Practical advice
Governments can close compounds down. In the meantime, the defences that actually work are boring and personal. 1. Treat urgency as the warning sign. Almost every scam needs you to act now — before you check, before you tell anyone, before you think. Genuine organisations are content to wait while you ring them back. 2. Never use a phone number, link or email address that the person contacting you supplied. Look it up yourself. For a bank, use the number on your card. 3. Know that your bank, the police, HMRC and the NHS will never ask you to move money to keep it safe, buy vouchers, or read out a one-time passcode. 4. Be especially careful with health and medicine scams. Fake online pharmacies and 'miracle cure' adverts are common. In the UK, a legitimate pharmacy selling prescription medicines is registered with the General Pharmaceutical Council, and prescription-only medicines always require a valid prescription. Anyone offering to skip that step is not a pharmacy. 5. Report it, even if you think nothing will come of it. In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, report to Action Fraud on 0300 123 2040 or actionfraud.police.uk. In Scotland, call Police Scotland on 101. Reports are what build the intelligence picture these international agreements run on. 6. If you have already lost money, tell your bank immediately. Speed genuinely affects whether funds can be recovered. And tell someone you trust — shame keeps people silent, and silence helps the fraudsters.
What to know
The UK and Cambodia signed a Memorandum of Understanding on 23 September 2026, announced the following day, to work together against online scam centres. It covers data sharing, joint operations, prosecutions, victim support and training for Cambodian investigators, and sits within a Fraud Strategy backed by £250 million. The reason it exists is in the numbers: one in fourteen UK adults has been defrauded, one in four UK businesses has been hit, and more than two-thirds of fraud affecting the UK begins overseas. An agreement is a start, not a result. What will show whether it worked is arrests, closures and money recovered, and those will take time. Until then, the most reliable protection is the same as it always was: slow down when someone creates urgency, look up contact details yourself, and never move money because a stranger told you to. Sources: Home Office, 'United Kingdom and Cambodia join forces to crackdown on online scam centres', 24 September 2026, https://www.gov.uk/government/news/united-kingdom-and-cambodia-join-forces-to-crackdown-on-online-scam-centres ; Home Office, 'Fraud Strategy launch' (speech), https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/fraud-strategy-launch ; UK Parliament, Written Statement on the Global Fraud Summit 2026, 25 March 2026, https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-statements/detail/2026-03-25/hcws1452 This article is for general information. If you think you have been the victim of fraud, contact your bank immediately and report it to Action Fraud (or Police Scotland on 101 in Scotland). This article is for general information and does not replace advice from a doctor, pharmacist or other qualified healthcare professional.
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