City police investigating a booby trap bomb placed under a vehicle early Friday morning said they suspect the blundered attack to be part of a dispute between Chinese gangs operating in Cambodia.
In Monyneath, deputy penal police chief of Prampi Makara district, said Sunday that the TNT bomb placed under a vehicle outside the Hong Kong Hotel on Monivong Boulevard was a “Chinese mafia action.”
“These people are mafia who come to invest in Cambodia legally but we do not know what they are really doing inside their companies,” In Monyneath said.
Another municipal police official, who asked not to be named, said Sunday that both attacks likely involved “Chinese gangs.”
Other Prampi Makara district police officers said Friday that they were looking for a suspect known as “Mok.” He is believed to be the former owner of a Chinese garment factory in Tuol Kok district, they said.
The intended target, Zhou Meng Tang, is a Chinese national who also owns a garment factory, district police said.
Cambodian Mine Action Center experts on Friday safely destroyed the bomb in a controlled explosion which rocked the vicinity and scattered sand and masonry over a wide area.
In Monyneath said Friday’s attempted car bombing was similar in character to the July 25 car bomb that injured a Chinese businessman on Street 217 in the Prampi Makara district.
Khmer-language newspaper Rasmei Kampuchea reported at the time that Dang Heng, 37, was slightly injured when a booby trap exploded as he got into his car. Dang Heng had recently arrived in Cambodia to start a traditional Chinese importing business.
