SEOUL, Oct 20, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - South Korea police said Monday they had issued arrest warrants for dozens of suspects deported by Cambodia over alleged links to cyberscam operations in the southeast Asian country.

"Believing that detention was necessary, we have requested arrest warrants for all 45 suspects," an official from the police agency in Chungnam province told AFP.

They declined to disclose further details as the case remains under investigation.

Sixty-four South Koreans who had been detained in Cambodia for their alleged involvement in cyberscam operations returned home on Saturday.

They were detained by South Korean authorities as soon as they boarded the chartered flight and were escorted off the plane in handcuffs.

Forty-five of them were sent to southwestern Chungnam province, while a further nineteen were sent to other regions, the National Police Agency said last week.

Seoul has said around a thousand South Koreans are estimated to be among a total of around 200,000 people working in scam operations in Cambodia.

Some have been forced under threat of violence to execute "pig butchering" scams -- cryptocurrency investment schemes that build trust with victims over time before stealing their funds.

The repatriation follows public outcry in the country over the torture and killing of a South Korean college student in Cambodia this year, reportedly by a crime ring.

The repatriated individuals have been implicated in various crimes linked to voice phishing, romance scams and so-called "no-show" fraud schemes, Park Sung-joo, head of the National Office of Investigation, told reporters last week.

National Security Adviser Wi Sung-lac previously said the detained individuals included both "voluntary and involuntary participants" in scam operations.