Anti-Corruption Unit Arrests Staff at UK Biofuel Firm
The Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) has arrested two employees of a local company linked to a British biofuel firm currently under investigation by the U.K.’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO), an official said Friday. ACU President Om Yentieng said that International Green Energy (IGE) director Oum Samnang, and another unnamed employee at the company, were arrested Wednesday in Phnom Penh and have been charged with forging land documents. … Investigators in the U.K. have claimed that up to 2,000 Britons lost savings as a jatropha tree plantation in Banteay Meanchey province ran into problems and company directors allegedly siphoned off funds. … Sustainable Agro Energy from 2007 sold investors stakes in biofuel plantations that promised to pay high returns. But investigators say that the company did not really have the assets it claimed in Cambodia and elsewhere. The SFO has not answered questions on the case since it announced it was investigating. … The company’s major interests in Cambodia are two economic land concessions in Banteay Meanchey’s Svay Chek district totaling more than 6,000 hectares. The company never officially acquired the rights to the concessions, but negotiated a price of about $2 million to buy them from businesswoman Mao Malay, the wife of Deputy Prime Minister Ke Kim Yan. …
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/anti-corruption-unit-arrests-staff-at-uk-biofuel-firm-7972/
