Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday urged officials at all levels of government and law enforcement to continue cracking down on drug offenders, following a recent spate of drug-related arrests.

Speaking at a Royal University of Law and Economics graduation ceremony, Hun Sen told officials not to get distracted by other ongoing criminal cases and to keep an eye on drug-related offences.

“If we are busy doing something else, [the criminals] do activities,” he said. “[They] know the government is focused on foreign invasion, so they commit drug and logging offenses.”

Hun Sen’s comments follow a series of high-level drug raids, including one on Friday that seized more than 80,000 yama pills and three kilograms of methamphetamine in Phnom Penh’s Russei Keo district. Kiev Samon, acting director of the Ministry of Interior’s anti-drug department, called Friday’s raid “historic”.

Phnom Penh deputy police chief Pen Rath said last week that 259 people were arrested in drug-related cases in the capital in the first two months of this year. Touch Naruth, municipal police chief, said more than 100 raids had been carried out in the same time period.