A tycoon who police refused to identify was arrested in the capital for firing into the air on Monday in Kandal province’s Ponhea Leu district, along with a military officer who doubled as his personal driver and bodyguard, police said yesterday.

A Daun Penh district military police officer, who asked not to be named, said the businessman, who has been awarded the honorific “okhna”, and his driver were driving from a celebration at Prasath Mountain.

“While he was arriving in the district, his car was stopped by a group of gangsters there …So he fired two bullets into the air to threaten them in order to drive back to his house in Phnom Penh,” he said, adding that no one was injured from the shooting.

Military police confiscated a pistol and eight bullets from the okhna, he said.

Kheng Tito, spokesman for the National Military Police, said both okhna and driver were being detained at the National Military Police Headquarters, but refused to reveal their identities.

To contact the reporter on this story: Buth Reaksmey Kongkea at [email protected]