An officer from the Australian Federal Police will come to Phnom Penh on a six-month assignment to monitor crime syndicates, the burgeoning heroin and amphetamine trades and human smuggling, the commissioner of the Australian police force said.
The announcement follows a meeting between the AFP’s new director, Commissioner Michael Keelty, and Hok Lundy, director-general of the Cambodian National Police. The officer will share information with AFP officers stationed in Bangkok and Vietnam, as well as with Cambodian police, Keelty said.
“The syndicates are actually operating across a number of borders at the same time,” Keelty said. “So we could all be working on it at the same time without realizing it.”
If it proves successful after six months, the AFP office in Phnom Penh will become permanent, Keelty said.
Crime syndicates operate freely in much of Southeast Asia, using Cambodia as a transit state for heroin or illegal immigrants bound for Australia or other western ports, Keelty said. One of the jobs of the liaison officer will be to determine the size of those operations. The officer also will investigate what is expected to be a surge in amphetamine-dealing from Thailand, where amphetamines already are an epidemic.
“We expect [amphetamines] to flood the region,” Keelty said.
Keelty’s three-day visit, from Friday to Sunday, was the first by an AFP commissioner. In addition to Hok Lundy, he also met with other senior National Police members.
Criminals who use Cambodia as safe harbor for their activities make Australia a more dangerous and unstable place to live, Keelty said. Illegal immigrants sometimes pass through Cambodia on their way to Australia, paying up to $5,000 per head, he said. “They jump the queue on legitimate refugees.”
The heroin trade also has exacted a high price in Australia, where addicts routinely die, Keelty said.
“We have a high fatality rate with heroin overdoses,” he said.
Although bribery is commonplace in Cambodia and police here have a poor record of prosecutions, Keelty said Australian police will not pass judgment on their Cambodian counterparts.
“It’s better for us to show them how we would do it and hope they learn from us,” he said.
The AFP officer will conduct some training exercises for Cambodian officers, including surveillance and investigation techniques.
The AFP has liaison officers in 21 countries around the world, including Burma. Until now the AFP has covered Phnom Penh from Bangkok.
