Citizenship Inc.

A new data project from Kouprey

Without further ado: Citizenship Inc., our latest data project. We combed through Royal Gazette books from 2000 to 2024 to collate all the people who acquired Cambodian citizenship and are making the full database available on the Mekong Independent’s website here.

This project involved entering and analyzing more than 4,000 unique pieces of data from the Cambodian government’s Royal Gazette. Here in Part 1, we explain the background and why we did this, a broad overview of what we found, and how you can use this data yourself. Part 2 will look closely at naturalized citizens with known or alleged criminal links.

What are the citizenship records and why care about them?

In recent years, naturalized Cambodian citizens have been linked to all sorts of alleged criminal activity: scam centers, money laundering, gangs. We have also seen how citizenship records from other countries were used to identify Cambodian elites with foreign passports. (See: Reuters’ Khmer Riche project and the work of investigative reporter Jack Davies on Prince Group boss Chen Zhi).

So, this data is powerful, and helps to understand the state apparatus that abets criminal activity around the world. The purpose of Citizenship Inc. is thus twofold: We wanted to find meaningful patterns and trends from who has received Cambodian citizenship and create a public repository of this information to aid investigative journalism.

Of course, people are naturalized for all kinds of legitimate reasons (see next section). Being a naturalized Cambodian citizen in no way implies wrongdoing, and the information we collated is already public on the government’s Council of Ministers website. But it’s buried across thousands of Khmer-language PDFs that comprise the Royal Gazette. So the Kouprey Herd documented records of each new naturalized citizen published by the Cambodian government from 2000 to 2024. Each data point contains the person’s original name, date of birth, place of birth, nationality, their new Khmer or chosen naturalization name, and the date citizenship was granted.

Cambodia stopped releasing this information in 2023, seemingly after nine out of 10 Chinese nationals linked to a billion-dollar money laundering bust in Singapore were found to be naturalized Cambodian citizens. (Note: Five citizenship documents in our database were published in 2024 Gazette books, but were issued in 2023. It is common for the first few Gazette entries to be from the previous year.)

Who can become a citizen?

The Law on Nationality lays out the stipulations for applying to citizenship and can be read in full here. Chapter 4 states:

• Foreigners who are born in Cambodia and establish residency, or can demonstrate exemplary achievement for the nation or donate money for the “restoration and rebuilding” of the economy can apply for naturalization.

• Additionally, foreign nationals can make an investment of around $300,000 in exchange for being naturalized. They can choose a Khmer or new name and receive a Cambodian passport.

• The government also requires that the person speaks and writes Khmer, has residency for seven years before applying, has never been previously “convicted of any criminal offense” and presents a physical and mental attitude that “will neither cause danger nor burden to the nation.”

• Chapter 3 of the same law allows citizenship by marriage.

• Of course, as this data shows, there are exceptions.

Now let’s get into the data.

The big stats

Kouprey tracked a total of 4,167 citizenships. The vast majority, 3,571 or 86 percent, were men.

Until 2012, the Cambodian government granted a few dozen citizenships a year, with an uptick first recorded in 2013. Approvals skyrocketed in 2019. The years 2019 and 2023 accounted for nearly 1,400 new citizens in the country — more than all those from 2000 to 2015 combined.

Chinese nationals dominate: Chinese nationals accounted for 2,355 citizenships granted, or almost 57 percent of the total. (This figure includes 33 people who listed Chinese and one or more nationalities). Taiwanese people were the second-largest group, comprising 381 citizenships, followed by Koreans (310), Thais (173), Vietnamese (138) and Americans (108). China technically doesn’t recognize more than one citizenship.

Overrepresentation of Fujian province: Across the dataset, 878 people were from Fujian, a southeastern province that sits opposite Taiwan. Of these, 848 listed Chinese as (or among) their nationalities. People from Fujian comprised around 36 percent of Chinese nationals in the dataset and, overall, a staggering one-fifth of all citizenships granted from 2000 to 2023. The next-biggest province for people of Chinese origin was Guangdong, with 269 people.

Fujian has a long history of drug and human trafficking and transnational crime because of its coastal location and proximity to Taiwan, as well as “vibrant commercial activities and rapid economic development,” academics Ko-Lin Chin and Sheldon Zhang write. More on this in Part 2.

Biggest year: The single-biggest year for Chinese and Fujian citizenships was 2019, when 549 Chinese nationals — 263 of whom were from Fujian — received citizenship. People from Fujian made up nearly 50 percent of Chinese nationals and 35 percent of all people naturalized that year.

Golden passports: At least 45 people listed one or multiple nationalities in places with citizenship-by-investment schemes: Dominica, Barbuda, Seychelles, St. Lucia, St. Kitts and Nevis and Vanuatu.

Vanuatu made up more than half of these entries with 24 people. Of these, 20 were born in China, with 12 from Fujian. Of the 16 St. Kitts and Nevis entries, 14 were Chinese-born, with 10 from Fujian.

Vanuatu and St. Kitts and Nevis both operate citizenship-by-investment schemes that target Chinese nationals. SKN’s has been deemed particularly “attractive to illicit actors” because of “lax controls as to who may be granted citizenship,” the US Treasury warned starting a decade ago, while Vanuatu’s citizenship program has also received negative attention for its “slew of disgraced businesspeople and individuals sought by police,” the Guardian reported in 2021.

To be sure, having multiple citizenships or being naturalized in the countries listed above is not an indication of illicit activity. But transnational criminals have been known to utilize naturalization-through-investment programs, making them worth a closer look.

‘Cambodians’ of Interest

For recent followers of Cambodian news, stories about naturalization tend to feature people linked to scam operations or other criminality. Perhaps the most high-profile example is Prince Group founder Chen Zhi, who was the first person in the country to have his citizenship revoked by the state under recent amendments to the Law on Nationality. We’ll dig into the alleged criminal links of naturalized ‘Cambodians’ in Part 2.

However, the naturalization process is also used to grant citizenship to long-time residents of the country, sportspersons, foreign spouses of the Khmer elite and people who the Cambodian People’s Party feel have served the nation. Here’s a sample of prominent figures we found in the data:

• The late American lawyer Bretton Sciaroni, who started a popular law firm in Phnom Penh and was a hob-nobbing government fixer. Sciaroni received citizenship in 2002 and is most known for being fired from the White House when he became embroiled in the Iran-contra scandal. Here’s an insightful profile of the man.

• Suwanna Gauntlett, who heads the conservation NGO Wildlife Alliance, was naturalized in 2009. Gauntlett’s NGO is tasked with the preservation of the Southern Cardamoms in the west of the country and has been a strong defender of carbon credit projects in Cambodia, like the REDD+. The NGO came under fire from Human Rights Watch a few years ago for allegedly using aggressive and violent tactics against Indigenous communities to evict them from their land, destroy their homes and intimidate them.

• Australian Helen Jarvis became a Cambodian in 2003. She worked at the Khmer Rouge Tribunal before it was dissolved and is still an advisor to the government of Cambodia, where she was close to Hun Sen confidant and Council of Ministers boss Sok An. Jarvis and her husband Allen Myers, who has previously edited government news releases and English-language retorts of the West, have long been accused of stumping for the government and the Cambodian People’s Party. The Cambodia Daily had an interesting profile of the dynamic duo.

• The publisher of the Khmer Times, T Mohan, was given citizenship in 2017, which coincided with the publication’s attacks on the Cambodia National Rescue Party and the newspaper’s backing of the government’s color revolution narrative. Pakistani national Matthews Joseph, who became a Cambodian in 2016, frequently features on Cambodian talk shows in support of the government and was documented pushing for naturalization in leaked text messages from 2017. The same set of leaked text messages also allegedly showed KT’s T Mohan desperately seeking funds from the late NagaWorld casino owner Chen Lip Keong, who was also made Cambodian in 2020.

• We also found the spouses of Cambodia’s vieux riche elite, including Yim Visne, who was given citizenship in 2019. Her husband, Yim Leak, is the jet-setting son of former senior minister Yim Chhay Ly and is under investigation in Thailand for his business links to political fixer Benjamin Mauerberger, who also has Cambodian citizenship (2014). Leak’s sister Yim Chhay Lin is the estranged/former wife of Hun Many, Hun Sen’s youngest son. Also, Thai national Phong Phatravy was naturalized in 2019 — presumably following her nuptials to Tea Siam — who is the brother of current Defense Minister Tea Seiha.

• The citizenship documents also reminded us of Sihanoukville businessman Nikolay Doroshenko (2007) who beefed with Russian property tycoon Sergei Polonsky. Spare some time to read tales of “Little Russia” here and how the Kazantip music festival brought to the fore this rivalry that ended with police arrests and deportation for Polonsky. Incidentally, Nikolay’s son, Ostap, too had citizenship and was in the Preah Sihanouk provincial police force before he was ousted by former Interior Minister Sar Kheng for violating discipline.

• It is not uncommon for smaller countries to grant citizenship to international athletes to boost their national sporting programs. Brazilian Kun Khmer fighter Thiago Teixeira (2023) has fought at mixed martial arts competitions and employed the ancient Cambodian fighting technique, much to the annoyance of the Muay Thai association in Thailand, which banned and stripped him of all his titles. Professional fighter Munonye Emmanuel Onyedikachi (2023) has also professed his love of Kun Khmer, earning him citizenship. Japanese footballer Yudai Ogawa was naturalized in 2023 and represents the Cambodian national team.

• Lastly, how could we forget Ta Prohm temple’s mascot, mother to adopted Cambodian Maddox Chivan Jolie-Pitt and famed “tomb raider” Angelina Jolie, who was naturalized in 2005.

New name, same person

The Cambodian government gives new citizens the option to change their names. Of all the naturalized citizens, 3,071 changed their names, in some cases changing just their first names or removing a middle name, and in others choosing an entirely new one.

Two Thai nationals chose to be called Ethan Hunt (from the Mission Impossible franchise) and Tony Stark (the late Avenger). Maybe they’re fighting crime and stopping rogue governments and alien beings from taking over the world.

Often, though, people pick Cambodian names: You Jeong Han became Pech Ponleu, Budy Utomo became Viseth Panha, Nguyen Huu Thanh Danh became Chea Malin.

How you can use this data

To ensure data is publicly available to all researchers, journalists, policymakers and nerds, we have partnered with Mekong Independent to display a searchable, clean interface. You can find people by name, date of issue or publishing, nationality, place of origin and other keywords.

Mekong Independent will add new search functionalities or annotate the data for people of interest as an ongoing process.

We’d love to see people using this data however they see fit, and we encourage you — and are happy to help you — cross-check specific entries against the actual documents in the Royal Gazette. We’d also love to see Kouprey be credited for references to the database.

How we did this project

This project took three months for the Herd to perform manual data collation and entry, translation, cleaning, editing and analysis. We relied on both original PDFs and scanned versions of the Gazette documents. All 4,167 entries were checked by multiple people, and the dataset as a whole was reviewed by another independent editor.

Still, some entries reflect challenges with precise transliterations of non-Khmer place names. (Korean names were especially tough for Cambodian bureaucrats to render into Khmer script, and were even tougher for us to render from script to English). There were also other idiosyncrasies with Taiwanese and Hong Kong entries, thanks to Cambodia’s one China policy. We’ve tried to make the entries as accurate as possible, but if you notice discrepancies, please let us or Mekong Independent know.

We’d also like to acknowledge a generous donation from a Kouprey subscriber that allowed us to pay Herd members to collate the data. Their generosity is an example of how you, the reader, can fund journalism outlets or your favorite reporters. So do consider donating money to keep journalism independent and sustainable for the people who risk a lot to bring you the news.

NOTE: This post was updated on 6 March to clarify that the citizenship data Kouprey collated is public information, and to add a link to the Law on Nationality.