PHNOM PENH, Oct 1, 2024 (BSS/AFP) - An award-winning Cambodian journalist known for his reporting on human trafficking in the cyber scam industry has been arrested, police said Tuesday.

Mech Dara was last year presented with a Hero Award, which recognises efforts against human trafficking, by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken for his investigations into exploitation at online scam compounds in Cambodia.

Authorities made the arrest on Monday after stopping a car carrying Dara and his family from Sihanoukville -- a coastal city where many suspected scam operations take place -- to Phnom Penh, the Cambodian Journalists Alliance Association (CamboJA) said in a statement.

Military police spokesman Eng Hy confirmed the arrest but refused to say where Dara was being held or which court he would be sent to.

"We executed the warrant from a prosecutor. As for the charges, we cannot say now. We have to wait for investigation first," he told AFP.

Dara, whose work has appeared in various international news outlets, sent a message about his arrest to LICADHO, a human rights NGO, just before his phone was seized by military police.

"We knew that he was arrested but we don't know where he was taken or the reason for his arrest," Am Sam Ath, operations director of LICADHO, told AFP.

A day before his arrest, Dara had posted an image on his social media platforms that purportedly showed a tourist site demolished to make way for a quarry, according to CamboJA.

Local authorities labelled the now-deleted images "fake news" and called for Dara to face punishment for their publication.

Dara previously worked for independent media outlet Voice of Democracy before Cambodian authorities shut it down in February last year.

He has since used his social media platforms to share news content, particularly around the proliferation of notorious "scam farms" -- criminal operations that defraud victims online for vast sums of cash and fuel human trafficking across the region.

Cambodia places near the bottom of international press freedom rankings, and rights groups have long accused the government of using legal cases as a tool to silence dissenting voices.

Independent newspaper The Cambodia Daily closed in 2017 over a tax dispute, while scores of other outlets closed the following year ahead of elections.

The United States last month imposed sanctions against a business tycoon and adviser to former prime minister Hun Sen for alleged abuses related to cyber scam trafficking, a decision Cambodia slammed as politically motivated.