Crime and law enforcement

Political fixture and former Co-Defence Minister Nhek Bun Chhay was officially charged yesterday with conspiracy to produce drugs and importing drug components after being linked to a decade-old bust by one of the men convicted in the original case. ...

Khmer National United Party (KNUP) leader and former General Nhek Bun Chhay was arrested in Phnom Penh yesterday in relation to a 2007 drug bust in Kampong Speu province – a dramatic acceleration in a fall from grace that began with an alleged flirtation with ...

About 200 Chinese people were arrested yesterday in two Poipet guesthouses in a bust on a scam operation that targeted civil servants in China with blackmail, according to police. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen made an appeal to Facebook users to “not create problems” as nationwide child-snatching hysteria led to another arrest on Tuesday, this of a man whom Takeo provincial police had earlier questioned for allegedly posting that Vietnamese men were attempting to kidnap ...

A teacher and opposition activist who made spurious claims on Facebook that two Vietnamese men had kidnapped children and cut out their kidneys and eyes is now facing up to two years in prison after he was arrested on Saturday and charged with spreading false ...

Police are searching for four suspects believed to have carried weapons illegally across the Thai border in a case in which three Cambodians and six Thais were arrested last month for alleged weapons trafficking, a Banteay Meanchey police official said on Monday. ...

Jailed activist Tep Vanny yesterday maintained her innocence and called on the judge to overturn her conviction in a hearing at the Appeal Court yesterday, as about 80 protesters demonstrated for her release outside. ...

Authorities destroyed nearly 1,000 boxes of counterfeit beer yesterday following earlier raids sparked by a complaint filed by the sole distributor of the brand name beer. ...

Banteay Meanchey Provincial Police are hunting four more suspects believed to be connected to a recent case of smuggling weapons to Thailand, with an official saying the group is accused of transporting the ordnance across the border. ...

National Police are monitoring Facebook to repress attempts to create a “rebel movement against the government” through negative posts and are working to better control civil society groups that have “opposition trends” and try to cause instability in society, a semiannual police report issued yesterday ...

Banteay Meanchey police have arrested three men, including a deminer from the Cambodian Mine Action Centre (CMAC), for their alleged involvement in selling three mortars seized last week by Thai authorities, who, in a separate raid in Thailand near the country’s border with Myanmar, detained ...

Police tackled 615 forestry and wildlife crimes in the first half of the year, with 376 cases ending up in court and the remaining 239 leading to administrative fines. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen donated $10,000 to Kem Ley’s family yesterday to help with the costs of a ceremony commemorating the one-year anniversary of the murdered political analyst’s assassination. ...

Police destroyed more than 60,000 marijuana plants spread across 3 hectares of land in a well-known Takeo province hotspot for growing the illegal crop, officials said on Tuesday. ...

Thai police have arrested a fourth suspect in the weapons smuggling case linked to a Cambodian immigration officer, according to Thai media, while a senior Cambodian Defence Ministry official said yesterday that any suggestions that the weapons came from Cambodia’s military arsenal had been ruled ...

Thirty-one Chinese nationals were arrested in three districts of Phnom Penh on Monday in the latest police crackdown on alleged fraudsters accused of operating a scam using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), according to a police report supplied by an immigration official. ...

The Ministry of Interior has set up a working group to oversee the elimination of illegal checkpoints along national roads and on waterways. According to a statement penned by Interior Minister Sar Kheng last Wednesday and obtained yesterday, the working group is comprised of eight ...

Police in Phnom Penh will next month start issuing fines of up to $25 for violations of parking regulations by using handheld devices that scan license plates and recognize the registered identity and address of a vehicle’s owner, an official said yesterday. ...

The Interior Ministry’s Central Security Department yesterday announced two hotlines for the public to report possible kidnappings after a spike in Facebook comments about parents losing their children. According to a statement issued yesterday, the purpose of the hotlines is to assist authorities with locating ...

The Mondolkiri Provincial Court this morning sentenced Dutch man Stefan Struik, 53, to two years in prison for helping his Vietnamese boyfriend, Nguyen Thanh Dung, 34, flee the country after videos of Mr. Nguyen torturing a 2-year-old Cambodian boy were posted on Facebook. ...

The Mondulkiri Provincial Court and mines and energy officials said they are investigating illegal sand exports to Vietnam following the questioning of four people who were intercepted yesterday by authorities driving truckloads of sand toward the eastern border. ...

A large rock smashed through the side window of a car that had just dropped off members of the Independent Monk Network for Social Justice in Kandal province on Tuesday night, the group’s leader But Buntenh said on Wednesday. ...

A draft United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) report released at a workshop on Monday praises efforts to crack down on sexual abuse of children but calls for measures to curb child pornography.​​ ...

Surveillance cameras set up throughout the capital will be synchronized and monitored nonstop from a central control room as part of a coordinated crimewatch effort between City Hall and the National Police, officials said on Tuesday. ...