A 35-year-old man was arrested in Phnom Penh’s Don Penh district Monday with counterfeit US bills worth more than $16,000 and 4.8 kgs of marijuana, a police official said Thursday.
Kong Sokun, a Phnom Penh port worker, was arrested by police in Phsar Thmei 2 commune with 161 fake $100 bills and the marijuana, said Thong Lim, chief of the Interior Ministry’s anti-terrorist police.
The suspect was scheduled to appear in Municipal Court on Thursday.
“After we seized the $16,100 of counterfeit money…the offender Kong Sokun confessed that it was his first time to smuggle counterfeit money from Banteay Meanchey province [in northwestern Cambodia],” said Thong Lim.
According to Thong Lim, counterfeiters will be targeted by National Police and officials are cooperating with the US Embassy in Phnom Penh to track down the source of the forged currency.
Last July, co-Minister of the Interior Sar Kheng said that as much as $1 million in counterfeit bills are in circulation in the Cambodian economy.
