Anti-drug police questioned four suspects at the Pursat provincial police office on Monday after they were arrested for trafficking 24 bags of methamphetamine on Saturday in Samrong commune, Phnom Kravanh district, Pursat.
Speaking to The Post on Monday, Pursat anti-drug office chief Sy Savin named the four suspects as Sek Koemsoeun, 41; Koy Kem, 29; Sam Samrach, 40, and Moeun Rin, 30. They all live in Samrong.
“I have detained them at my office for not more than 24 hours yet. My officers are still questioning them on Monday and preparing to send documents to the provincial court,” Savin said.
He said the evidence included 24 bags of methamphetamine – six large bags and 18 smaller ones – 10 phones, four motorbikes, two chainsaws and 113 logs of wood.
Hun Chan Thea, the Phnom Kravanh district police chief in charge of serious crime, told The Post on Monday that Koemsoeun was the only trafficker in the case, while the other three suspects were drug users.
Chan Thea said Phnom Kravanh authorities arrested Koemsoeun while he was selling drugs to users.
“After authorities arrested the drug trafficker, they ordered him to take them to arrest the three other drug users. Drugs cause many problems not only to you and your family but they also affect security and social order,” he said.
A Ministry of Interior report said authorities investigated 4,000 drug cases in the past six months, an increase of 27 per cent compared to the same period last year.
Authorities arrested over 8,000 offenders (8,369 Cambodians, 96 Vietnamese, two Lao, three Thai, 13 Chinese, a Burmese, an Indonesian, a Singaporean, a Japanese and a Nigerian) over the timeframe. The number of drug arrests increased by 26 per cent from last year.
