By Buth Reaksmey Kongkea
Monday, 07 May 2012
Phnom Penh Post
Police seize materials used in the production of narcotics during a raid in Phnom Penh last week. Photograph: Supplied
The Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Saturday officially charged the 11
suspects arrested during last week’s raids on six drug-producing sites
around Phnom Penh, authorities said yesterday.
According to Major
Buon Sam Ath, chief of Po Sen Chey District Police, the suspects were
charged with importing international drug ingredients, producing drugs
and drug trafficking.
“They have been sent to prison to await their trials,” he said.
The
two alleged leaders of the drug ring, both Vietnamese nationals, fled
the country despite Cambodian authorities’ efforts to alert their
counterparts in Thailand, Laos and Vietnam, said Brigadier General Pen
Rath, deputy chief of the Phnom Penh Municipal Police.
“They
escaped from Cambodia to Vietnam after their drug group members were
cracked down on and arrested by Cambodian authorities in Phnom Penh,” he
said.
In addition to the 11 arrests made during the raids,
authorities also seized more than 3,000 litres of safrole oil, a key
ingredient in the manufacture of the drug ecstasy.
The raids
also yielded 11 barrels of gasoline (scented to mask its presence in the
finished product), six bottles of acid, seven bottles of alcohol, a
drug-producing machine and an unspecified amount of powder
methamphetamines.
According to police, the safrole seized in the
raids had been smuggled into Cambodia from Thailand, underscoring recent
comments from officials noting an uptick in arrests and seizures
related to drug production and transit in Cambodia.
“Besides
this, [drug criminals] were trying to get into Cambodia by using it as a
place for cross drug-trafficking activities,” Minister of the Interior
Sar Kheng told the Post in a recent interview.
Chiv
Keng, president of the Phnom Penh Municipal Court, and Ek Chheng Huoth,
the court’s deputy prosecutor, could not be reached for comment
yesterday.
To contact the reporter on this story: Buth Reaksmey Kongkea at kongkea.buthreaksmey@phnompenhpost.com
2 comments:
May this case is related to Hun To as well,the case of Yuon cpp authority lets it escaped easy.Cpp criminals boss behind all these drugs was HunTo...
Hunsi
I bet the bosses behind this drug businesses are one of the rich or powerful people. Either military, police or well-connected businessmen. Ordinary or poor people don't have the means to do this drug business.
Post a Comment