A 40-year-old Malaysian woman was charged and sent to Prey Sar prison yesterday for her involvement in the US$500,000 sale of a building in Phnom Penh that she and her alleged accomplices were renting, a court official said.

The scheme was fairly straightforward.

Malaysian national Chow Kuanwai and two colleagues from Singapore and China had rented a building from a Cambodian family to open the Christian International School in 2008.

In 2012, they turned around and sold it to another person without telling the owner.

Seang Sok, deputy prosecutor of the Phnom Penh Municipal Court, said Chow Kuanwai was charged with breach of trust.

Her official title at the school was administrative director.

He said the court had also issued arrest warrants for the two foreign nationals from Singapore and China, both of whom escaped.

Keo Sokhom, a police officer in Phnom Penh, said Kuanwai had been arrested by police on June 10.

He said Kuanwai had been arrested on the complaint of the building’s owner, who came to her property one day to find a stranger there claiming to have bought the place.

Keo Sokhom said the Singaporean and Chinese accomplices were the school director and a trainer, respectively.

Phnom Penh attorney Dun Vibol said that if convicted, the woman could be jailed for three years and fined six million riel (US$1,500).

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