Cambodia Drug Ring Leader profiled

http://www.kohsantepheapdaily.com.kh.../drug13_10.htm

http://www.kohsantepheapdaily.com.kh.../drug13_10.htm

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Drug-burning police plead for global aid

[Police at their drug-burning spectacle at Hun Sen Park on October 8.]

By Susan Font

Amajor haul of heroin and amphetamines confiscated this month was
doused in gasoline and set aflame on October 8 marking what municipal
police chief Heng Peo called Cambodia's "biggest ever anti-drug
operation".

The torching of the 40 kg of drugs at Hun Sen Park was to send a
message that Cambodia is serious about cracking down on drugs, said
Khieu Sopheak, spokesman for the Ministry of Interior (MoI).

Deputy and acting Prime Minister Sar Kheng used the ceremony to plead
for more financial assistance to combat narcotics trafficking. He said
Cambodia had been "excluded from most international assistance".

The country's anti-drug activity relies heavily on financial support
from the international community for law enforcement training. Sopheak
declined to provide figures on the amount of foreign assistance, but
said that Cambodia's rising profile as a key trafficking route demands
extra support.

"If we don't get help, we can [still] fight drugs ourselves," he said.
"But it is a global problem and Cambodia benefits from very little
assistance from the global community."

Graham Shaw, program officer of the United Nations Office on Drugs and
Crime (UNOCD) said the police involved with drug operations lacked
education, training skills and had inferior equipment.

"You could consider them handicapped," he said.

But despite the rhetoric, the most recent crackdown is not the
biggest, said an international police expert.

Christian Guth, a law enforcement advisor to the Ministry of Interior
(MoI), participated in a 1996 seizure netting 71 kg of high-quality
heroin on a boat in Sre Ambel on the coastline. He said it was "the
first really important and the largest drug bust" in Cambodia.

Guth worked as an advisor with the anti-drug office of the Cambodian
police from 1995 to 1996, along with Heng Peo who was in charge of the
anti-drugs operations funded primarily by the French government.

Shaw of UNOCD was unsure why the recent crackdown was being hyped as
the country's biggest.

"Perhaps it was for publicity, to appeal to the international
community for support or maybe it was to send a message to various
people, like Hok Lundy to show they could handle it or send a message
to people in the drug business," he said.

The October 1 bust, which yielded the drugs burned at the ceremony,
uncovered 106 blocks of heroin inside a house in Tuol Kork district
along with amphetamines, pill-making machines and firearms.

Sopheak said the rising tide of drugs flowing through Cambodia had to
be stopped.

"We will not allow these traffickers to turn Cambodia into a big
concern for drug trafficking," Sopheak said.

But Guth said Cambodia has long been recognized as a major trafficking
route.

"In 1996, Cambodia was definitely identified as a [major] drugs
transit country," said Guth. The 71 kg heroin seizure he assisted with
had been smuggled from Thailand through Sihanoukville on its way to
Australia.

Since then, it appears the drug trade has only expanded.

In the last nine months, 136 cases of drug trafficking have been
intercepted, according to the Ministry of Interior. Since April 1,
there have been six major drug busts, three of them at Phnom Penh
airport. The April case included the collaboration of Australian
authorities to trace 24 kg of heroin that had arrived in Sydney from
Cambodia. Altogether, the six busts netted about 76 kg of heroin.

The most recent seizure implicated Lim Samnang, a captain in the
intelligence unit of the Ministry of Defense, who hid 40 kg of heroin
in his Tuol Kork house. Seven of his cohorts were sentenced for drug
smuggling on September 8. Some are alleged to have connections with
Chinese triads.

Phnom Penh Post, Issue 12/21, October 10 - 23, 2003
© Michael Hayes, 2003. All rights revert to authors and artists on
publication.
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