9352 Moo 1 Wangkraja Amphur Muang, Trat Trat, 23000, Thailand
Reg. ID
5230200031049, National ID No.
Official reason
Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is sanctioning Cambodian businessman Ly Yong Phat (Ly), his conglomerate L.Y.P. Group Co., LTD (L.Y.P. Group), 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. OFAC is also designating Cambodia-based Garden City Hotel, Koh Kong Resort, and Phnom Penh Hotel for being owned or controlled by Ly. O-Smach Resort is owned by L.Y.P. Group, which is owned by Cambodian senator and tycoon Ly Yong Phat (Ly). For more than two years, from 2022 to 2024, O-Smach Resort has been investigated by police and publicly reported on for extensive and systemic serious human rights abuse. 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. People who called for help reported being beaten, abused with electric shocks, made to pay a hefty ransom, or threatened with being sold to other online scam gangs. There have been two reports of victims jumping to their death from buildings within O‑Smach Resort.
Local authorities have conducted repeated rescue missions at O-Smach Resort, including in October 2022 and March 2024, freeing victims of various nationalities, including Chinese, Indian, Indonesian, Malaysian, Singaporean, Thai, and Vietnamese.
OFAC is designating Ly, L.Y.P. Group, and O-Smach Resort pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 13818 for being foreign persons who are responsible for or complicit in, or have directly or indirectly engaged in, serious human rights abuse.
OFAC is also designating Garden City Hotel, Koh Kong Resort, and Phnom Penh Hotel for being owned or controlled by, or having acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, Ly, an individual concurrently designated pursuant to E.O. 13818.
On December 23, 2016, the President signed the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act (Pub. L. 114-328, Title XII, Subtitle F) (the “Act”) into law. The Act authorized the President to impose targeted sanctions on any foreign person the President determines is, among other things, responsible for extrajudicial killings, torture, or other gross violations of internationally recognized human rights, or a government official, or a senior associate of such an official, responsible for, or complicit in, ordering, controlling, or otherwise directing, acts of significant corruption.
On December 20, 2017, the President, invoking the authority of, inter alia, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701-1706) (IEEPA), issued Executive Order 13818 (82 FR 60839, December 26, 2017) (E.O. 13818), effective at 12:01 a.m. eastern standard time on December 21, 2017.
In E.O. 13818, the President determined that serious human rights abuse and corruption around the world constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States and declared a national emergency to deal with that threat.
OFAC is issuing the Global Magnitsky Sanctions Regulations, 31 CFR part 583 (the “Regulations”), to implement the Act and E.O. 13818, pursuant to authorities delegated to the Secretary of the Treasury in E.O. 13818. A copy of E.O. 13818 appears in appendix A to this part.
