Board of Audit and Inspection: "Cambodia Travel Advisory Left Unchanged for Two Years Despite Harm to South Koreans"... Seeks Disciplinary Action Against 3 Foreign Ministry Officials

Board of Audit and Inspection audits protection of South Korean nationals abroad
Response delayed despite knowing crimes were becoming more brutal
Travel advisory upgrade derailed by unregulated diplomatic consultations
Response headquarters not

While 741 South Korean nationals suffered from job scams, kidnapping, confinement and other crimes in Cambodia, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs delayed raising its travel advisory for nearly two years. Although it was aware that the crimes were becoming more brutal over time, the ministry either misjudged the criteria for issuing an advisory or repeatedly held interdepartmental consultations. The Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI) called for minor disciplinary action against three ministry officials, including a director-general and a director, for neglecting their duties to protect South Korean nationals.

Yonhap News Agency

According to the BAI's audit report on the "Operation of Overseas Missions and Protection of South Korean Nationals Abroad," released on November 5, the number of South Korean nationals victimized by job scams, kidnapping, confinement and other crimes in Cambodia surged from 17 in 2023 to 220 in 2024 and 504 in 2025. The total number of victims over the three years reached 741. In August 2025, a South Korean university student held at a local criminal compound died after being tortured.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs raised its travel advisory for Cambodia in September 2025, after reports of the student's death. The BAI criticized the ministry, saying it had "missed an opportunity to prevent harm to South Korean nationals in advance."

Failed to act despite knowing crimes were becoming more brutal; hindered by unregulated advance briefing

The audit found that, from December 2023, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had been aware of crimes in Cambodia and the increasingly brutal methods used through overseas missions and private companies, among others. In April 2024, the Embassy of the Republic of Korea in Cambodia recommended issuing a special travel advisory, but the ministry's headquarters rejected the proposal, saying that job scams posed a constant risk and therefore did not meet the criteria for issuing an advisory. In July of the same year, the ministry left the embassy's recommendation to raise the travel advisory unaddressed on the grounds that the embassy had not submitted the prescribed adjustment form.

In September 2024, the department in charge at the ministry's headquarters said that Cambodia's government needed to be briefed in advance. This step was not required under any relevant regulations. The embassy recommended postponing the briefing until after the ASEAN Summit, and the ministry's headquarters accepted the proposal. However, in December 2024, the embassy did not recommend raising the travel advisory, citing factors including the head of the National Office of Investigation's planned visit to Cambodia. It was not until April 2025 that a department at the ministry's headquarters moved to raise the advisory, but the proposal fell through after another department's call for "careful review" was taken as opposition to raising it. The embassy also made no recommendation to raise the advisory in June 2025.

The BAI concluded that the delays in issuing travel advisories were a systemic problem. It analyzed 54 cases in which travel advisories were adjusted on an ad hoc basis following recommendations from overseas missions between 2023 and October 2025. In 16 cases (29.6%), it took 15 days or more to make an adjustment, and in nine of those cases, the process took 30 days or more. Internal administrative procedures, including working-level consultations between departments, were responsible for nine of the 16 lengthy delays.

No pan-government response meeting held, even after 161 people were victimized

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs should also have considered activating its headquarters for the protection of South Korean nationals abroad to respond to the situation in Cambodia, but it did not even hold a meeting on the matter. From December 2023 to September 2024, 161 South Korean nationals were victimized in Cambodia. The ministry had previously activated a pan-government task force and other response bodies when South Korean nationals were kidnapped in Peru in September 2024 and in the Philippines in March 2025. However, it did not consider job scams in Cambodia to constitute a national crisis or an overseas emergency.

The BAI called for minor disciplinary action against three Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials, including a director-general and a director, for neglecting their duties to protect South Korean nationals, including raising travel advisories and activating a response headquarters. It also notified the ministry to retain information on embassy officials who had not actively recommended raising the advisory for use in future personnel decisions.

Two hours to reach emergency contact; consular assistance guidance also inadequate

Gaps were also found across the broader system for protecting South Korean nationals abroad. The BAI analyzed 157,859 overseas incidents and accidents reported between 2023 and October 2025 and found that 54,474, or 34.5%, had been reported directly to overseas missions rather than the Consular Safety Call Center. About 60% of those cases were relatively minor matters that the call center could handle, such as lost items and inquiries about immigration procedures. Emergency communications were also inadequate. In Laos, the call center received a report of a job scam and contacted the embassy, but it took two hours to get through by phone. The Consulate General in Dubai also could not be reached through the call center's emergency line.

In response, the BAI audited the Ministry of Foreign Affairs headquarters and 19 overseas missions in November and December 2025, and took a total of 13 measures: one disciplinary recommendation, two admonitions, nine notices calling for institutional improvements, and one notice for personnel records. It also called for a formal deadline to be set for consultations on travel advisory adjustments and for improvements to emergency communications and guidance on consular assistance.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.