Twenty-six Taiwanese nationals were arrested yesterday in Preah Sihanouk by the security and information department of the military police for their alleged involvement in a large-scale internet phone scamming scheme, police said yesterday.

Brigadier General Kheng Tito, spokesman for the national military police, said the men were arrested during a raid carried out by local and national military police on three rental villas yesterday morning.

“These people were part of a group of Chinese and Taiwanese scammers who had threatened and extorted money from people in China and Taiwan via [Voice over Internet Protocol] telephones from Cambodia,” he told the Post yesterday.

The group is being questioned at the provincial military police headquarters, and police will request the court to charge them with extortion and making threats, he said.

National military police believe there were more members of this ring operating in similar set ups across the province, Tito added, and were investigating other villas.

According to a report from the Ministry of Interior, about 600 Chinese and Taiwanese nationals have been arrested from 2010 until early this month on allegations of extorting money by threatening people via phone calls made to China and Taiwan.