SEOUL - South Korean prosecutors Friday charged a matchmaking agent accused of arranging a group interview between 25 Cambodian women and a South Korean bachelor, a case which sparked anger in Phnom Penh.

The agent surnamed Lee allegedly failed to tell his client of restrictions in Cambodia on international marriages, including a ban on group interviews with brides, the Seoul Central Prosecution Office said.

If convicted Lee, 58, faces up to three million won (S$3,448.328) in fines, prosecutors said.

Cambodia imposed a temporary ban on foreign marriages in 2008 to prevent human trafficking, amid concern over a sharp rise in the number of brokered unions involving South Korean men and poor Cambodian women.

The restriction was lifted about eight months later after new laws were introduced to prevent women becoming mail-order brides.

Lee allegedly arranged the interview in Phnom Penh last September for the 43-year-old South Korean. The 25 Cambodian women travelled from the countryside to meet him.

A Cambodian agent was sentenced to 10 years in prison over the case, and in March this year the Phnom Penh government imposed a temporary ban on South Koreans marrying its nationals. The ban was lifted in April after new rules were introduced.

South Korea announced last week it would set up a task force to reform the international matchmaking business following a number of abuses, including the fatal stabbing of a Vietnamese woman by her mentally ill husband. It is also cracking down in the courts.

Judges in the southern city of Busan last week sentenced three brokers to up to one year in prison on charges of illegally arranging marriages between Koreans and Vietnamese women.

More than a third of South Korean fishermen and farmers who married last year chose immigrant brides, some because they were unable to find local women prepared to lead a rural lifestyle.

Activists say some foreign brides, coaxed by false promises or deceptive advertising, end up living with spouses who have few assets or who are ill, alcoholic or just difficult.