Forest products

A man was accused of illegally collecting and transporting timber after Military Police officials arrested him with over 2 tonnes of illicit rosewood in Stung Treng on Sunday morning. ...

A national police spokesman yesterday said a report alleging that tycoon Kith Meng’s Royal Group was colluding with loggers to launder timber was mistakenly posted on the body’s official site by a “tired” employee who meant to share the information with local reporters but not ...

More than 400 pieces of luxury thnong wood suspected to be felled by a local community were seized by authorities in Pursat province’s Phnom Samkos Wildlife Sanctuary on Thursday following a tip-off from a local reporter. ...

A representative of business mogul Kith Meng’s Royal Group yesterday hit back at a report published by the National Police accusing the company of laundering illegal timber through the Lower Sesan II hydro power project. ...

The U.K. NGO that last week exposed a major new timber trafficking operation between Cambodia and Vietnam has released more evidence in hopes of supporting Phnom Penh’s investigation into its claims, including invoices from Cambodia-based companies breaking the country’s timber export ban. ...

Police officers, gendarmes and Forestry Administration officials yesterday discovered a large cache of valuable, illegally felled wood – which locals say was destined for Vietnam – after raiding a house in Stung Treng province linked to a prominent timber trader. ...

Fourteen community representatives speaking for thousands of families yesterday petitioned the South Korean Embassy, Environment Ministry and Forestry Administration to halt the expansion of a controversial “reforestation” project by a Korean company situated between the protected Prey Lang forest and Mekong River. Their petition – ...

Authorities intercepted four trucks carrying 81 pieces of illegal luxury timber at a checkpoint in Ratanakkiri province’s O’Yadav district last Friday, District Military Police Commader Sok Min said yesterday. ...

Cambodian and Vietnamese officials have received millions of dollars in bribes from Vietnamese timber traders as part of a cross-border “conspiracy” to log vast swathes of Ratanakkiri province and funnel the timber to Vietnam, according to a damning report by the Environmental Investigation Agency released ...

Villagers in Preah Vihear’s Choam Ksan district confronted a group of soldiers, preventing them from felling timber in their community forest by confiscating one of their trucks, a local official said yesterday. ...

More than a tonne of rosewood and the plateless car carrying it were seized in Oddar Meanchey province yesterday after authorities received a report about a Vietnamese woman and her workers trying to set the vehicle on fire. ...

Environment Ministry officials in Ratanakkiri province are hunting for timber traders who on Sunday set ablaze 300 logs of luxury wood in Lumphat Wildlife Sanctuary, one of several protected areas raided by Vietnamese loggers in recent months. ...

Police in Ratanakkiri province Thursday’stopped a bus and arrested two Vietnamese men—the driver and a bus company employee—who were attempting to transport about 300 kg of luxury-grade timber across the border to Vietnam, officials said. ...

Around 600 hectares of the protected Southern Cardamom National Park in Koh Kong have been illegally cleared and sold off for cultivation since 2013, sometimes by local authorities, according to the conservation organisation Wildlife Alliance. ...

The manager of an illegal timber warehouse owned by Lieutenant General Chheng Long was arrested in Kampong Speu on Wednesday, although Long and his son-in-law remain at large. ...

Authorities in Vietnam’s Gia Lai province have recently stopped at least nine overloaded timber trucks crossing into the country from the Kingdom, despite the Cambodian government ostensibly banning wood exports to its eastern neighbour, according to a Vietnamese news report. ...

Ratanakkiri provincial authorities yesterday seized a large cache of luxury wood and arrested four people about to sell the timber to Vietnam. ...

Customs officers have released a pair of trucks that local officials said were seized late last month while being used to smuggle timber belonging to business mogul Kith Meng into Vietnam in breach of a government ban, according to police. ...

Authorities in Ratanakkiri province have confiscated about 700 small pieces of luxury-grade wood found on an empty plot of land belonging to Yeay Pralit, a timber trader whom local authorities had long suspected of committing forest crimes, deputy provincial court prosecutor Hak Phoan said on ...

A stockpile of illegal timber was reportedly found on the land of a district military police chief in Kampong Speu province, while his son-in-law and alleged timber trader Sy Sar remains at large. ...

Authorities in Tbong Khmum province seized two trucks that were about to break the government’s ban on timber exports to Vietnam by carting wood across the border for a company owned by business mogul Kith Meng. ...

Members of the prime minister’s anti-logging task force who had been looking into officials’alleged collusion with Vietnamese timber smugglers in Mondulkiri has ended its 10-day investigation. ...

Eleven Vietnamese men and two Cambodian men have been arrested for border crossing offenses and logging in protected forests. Interior Ministry immigration police officer Bun Chantha said the Cambodians and seven of the Vietnamese were arrested in Rattanakiri province’s Lumphat district on Monday.   ...

At least 70 timber smugglers transporting some 200 cubic metres of illegal first- and second-grade wood were stopped by authorities in the Phnom O’ral Wildlife Sanctuary over the weekend, before being allowed to leave without charges and still in possession of the illegal timber. ...