Around 10,000 hectares around the Tonle Sap lake have had protections relaxed, purportedly to legitimize families already using the land, while a port project linked to tycoon Try Pheap received 150 hectares off the coast of Kampot.
The dusty road outside tycoon Try Pheap’s Thmor Da SEZ in Pursat is empty. But behind locked metal gates, its shabby buildings appear full of inhabitants. Interior Minister Sar Kheng this week called out police excuses in their crackdown on scam compounds, urging vigilance.
Three people have been arrested at airports in Phnom Penh and Thailand for allegedly kidnapping a colleague, stealing cash and transferring money from the victim’s phone, with a fourth suspect still at large.
After months of authorities’ denials, Interior Minister Sar Kheng acknowledged foreign nationals had been trafficked into Cambodia and faced violent treatment.
Police rescued a woman from a quarantine center for Try Pheap’s Special Economic Zone in Pursat on Wednesday night. But she had merely wanted to leave “because it was too quiet,” an official said, without answering why police intervention was needed.
A remote, city-like compound owned by U.S.-blacklisted tycoon Try Pheap is housing online scam operations of thousands of workers rife with forced labor, detention and unexplained deaths, trafficking victims and rescuers allege.
Last week’s arrest of a former opposition commune councilor stems from a 6-year-old complaint filed by timber baron Try Pheap, a human rights group said.
The U.S. government on Monday sanctioned a senior Cambodian official and a timber tycoon, both close allies of Prime Minister Hun Sen, for alleged corruption, a move that Cambodia branded an “ambush” that threatened bilateral relations.
Timber magnate Try Pheap’s request to dredge sand in the Mekong and Tonle Bassac rivers is awaiting a study on the potential impact on riverbanks, a Water Ministry official said on Monday.
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