A 33-year-old Chinese national was arrested at Phnom Penh International Airport yesterday morning after he was caught allegedly attempting to traffic 18 Cambodian men as illegal labourers to China.

At 3am yesterday, airport officers observed two Chinese men leading the 18 Cambodian men to work at a factory in China but upon checking their passports, it was found that they all carried tourist visas and not work visas, said Keo Thea, chief of Phnom Penh’s Municipal Anti-Trafficking Unit.

“They said they were travelling to China in a group to work at a factory but they have no documents from the company and they only had tourist visas,” Thea said.

After the passports raised suspicions, the two Chinese brokers made a run to leave the airport.

Police were able to arrest Liang Jiasheng, while the other man escaped.

After questioning, Jiasheng reportedly admitted he had paid for the tickets and passports of the Cambodian men, who hail from Phnom Penh and Svay Rieng.

“The broker paid a lot for the passports and tickets,” The said. “He would traffic them to get benefits later, but now we saved our 18 Cambodian men.

If we had not cracked down on them before, bad things would have happened.”