Four arrested in drug lab bust

Photo by: Heng Chivoan
Police gather precursor chemicals and drug manufacturing equipment seized during a raid on a home in Prampi Makara district yesterday, as one of four detained suspects (top left) looks on.

via Khmer NZ

Monday, 16 August 2010 15:02 Thet Sambath

POLICE arrested four people in a raid on a drug manufacturing house in Phnom Penh’s Prampi Makara district yesterday.

Yim Socheat, chief of the municipal police anti-drug office, said the raid followed a long investigation in the area.

“We arrested two men and two women, and we confiscated materials, drugs and objects to produce drugs,” he said.

Yim Socheat said the seized materials included 49 packets of precursor chemicals and around two hundred grams of drug tablets, but that he did not know what drug was being produced. The four people arrested Sunday have not yet been charged.

Police informed local media about yesterday’s raid. One of the men, who was handcuffed near his bed during the raid, said he was unsure why drug-related materials had turned up in his home.

He denied playing a role in any kind of drug-trafficking scheme.

“I do not know these objects at my house,” the man said. “I do not make drugs or traffic drugs.”

Yim Socheat said police would question the suspects further before sending them on to Phnom Penh Muncipal Court when the investigation is

complete.

Controversial treatment

Meanwhile, Vietnamese state media reported that Ke Kim Yan, the chairman of Cambodia’s National Authority for Combating Drugs, visited the offices of Fataco Export Import Company in Ben Tre, Vietnam on Friday. The company manufactures Bong Sen, a controversial medication touted as a cure for drug dependence.

Rights groups and addiction experts criticised authorities last December after officials administered Bong Sen on a group of 21 drug users.