Banteay Meanchey Provincial Court on Saturday charged an unemployed 23-year-old man with impersonating a military police officer and using the guise to defraud two men out of $6,000 – a payment they believed would buy them jobs with the military police in Phnom Penh, authorities said yesterday.

Poipet military police commander Colonel Muth Ham said suspect and Preah Sihanouk province native Lim Meng is in detention awaiting trial for “impersonating a public servant position and fraud”, for which he could face up to six years in prison and $2,000 in fines.

“He wore a military police uniform and wore the rank of second lieutenant and presented himself as a national military police officer,” Ham said yesterday. “He went to Poipet town to recruit people to work as policemen.

“He required villagers or those who wanted to work as military policemen to pay him $3,000 each, and he promised to offer them jobs with national military police.”