Senior officials of the Ministry of Interior revoked more than 36,000 invalid documents from foreigners in the first five months of this year, a ministry report issued on Tuesday said.

The report – issued during a meeting summarising the revocation of irregular documents from foreigners this year said they were confiscated from nearly 20,000 immigrant families – totalling nearly 70,000 foreigners – representing six nationalities.

Among those, Vietnamese nationals were the largest offenders.

The foreigners in question held jobs in construction, business and other sectors, with confiscated documents including identification cards, birth certificates, Cambodian family books, among others.

The meeting was led by the ministry’s Secretary of State and Managing Immigration Committee President Sok Phal, Immigration Department director Kirth Chantharith, and other senior ministry officials.

Officials also estimated that more than 50,000 foreigners were living in the Kingdom illegally.

During the meeting, Phal said the government had revoked 90 per cent of irregular documents from foreigners and set a deadline of July 30 to revoke the remaining 10 per cent.

“As for the remaining, some returned to their country for work or other reasons, but I cannot tell you how many people returned,” he said.

General Department of Immigration deputy director-general Sovann Pisakha told The Post that authorities found and revoked a total of 36,094 irregular documents from 19,395 immigrant families totalling of 68,801 people, of which 32,837 were female.

Among them were 49,638 illegal immigrants aged 18 or over. Of them 23,921 were female.

Sourn Butmao, the Minority Rights Organization (MIRO) executive director, told The Post on Tuesday that he suspected there was corruption involved in the revocation of foreigner’s documents.

“We are suspicious of the procedure around revoking documents. Some people did not have their documents revoked if they have money to bribe [officials], as was the case in Kampong Chhnang province,” he claimed.