A teenager with a 10-kilo haul of home-grown marijuana was charged with drug possession and trafficking today after he was allegedly caught in Takeo province trying to ferry the cannabis over the Vietnamese border.

Keo Phou, 18, was arrested in Kiri Vong district on Monday after police spotted him transporting six garbage bags stuffed full of marijuana on his motorbike.

Kiri Vong District Police Chief Yuk Sarath said Phou was apprehended in Preah Bat Chonchum commune, and alleged the teen was intending to sell the cannabis – weighing 10 kilograms – at the Vietnamese border.

“He confessed that all the weed was his own that he had grown in the jungle,” Sarath said, although the suspect denied he was trafficking the drug, maintaining it was for personal use.

Phan Sopheak, spokesman for the Takeo Provincial Court prosecutor, said Phou was charged with illegal possession and dealing marijuana, under Article 40 of Cambodia’s drug control law.

The charge carries a prison term of five to 10 years, he added.

The court ordered Phou be sent to pre-trial detention in Takeo Provincial Prison yesterday afternoon.

The arrest comes after a year of intense drug crackdowns on users and dealers that has over-burdened Cambodia’s already-strained prison system.