Cambodian police seizes marijuana worth over 7 mln USD

A senior anti-drug official said here Tuesday the Cambodian police had seized a large amount of marijuana in Phnom Penh and arrested three suspected drug dealers.

Lt. Gen. Khieu Saman, director of the Interior Ministry's anti- drug trafficking department, said police officers raided a house in Phnom Penh on Friday, confiscating nearly 1.5 tons of dry marijuana and 1.5 kilograms of marijuana oil along with some processing equipment.

"They smuggled the marijuana from Laos into Cambodia and destined for a third country," he told a press conference. "It is estimated that the dry marijuana is valued at over 7 million U.S. dollars and the marijuana oil is worth about 75,000 U.S. dollars."

The suspects had hidden the properly-packaged marijuana in coffee packs while they imported it from Laos into Cambodia, he said.

According to the official, police are hunting for a European ringleader who had provided money to the three arrested suspects to commit the crime.

Cambodia has no death sentence. According to the country's law on drug control, anyone who possesses over 60 kilograms of marijuana will be sentenced from 20 years to life in prison and fined between 10,000 U.S. dollars and 25,000 U.S. dollars.

According to Saman, besides this marijuana raid, the country had cracked down on nearly 1,300 drug-related cases with the arrests of more than 2,000 suspects in the first seven months of 2015, and some 90 kilograms of all types of drugs had been seized. Endi