Police in Kandal and Kompong Cham provinces have arrested eight people since Wednesday as suspects in the December 12 armed robbery of a Wing money transfer kiosk, one in a recent spate of similar attacks across the country.
At the time of the robbery, authorities in Kandal said four men armed with three AK-47 assault rifles and an ax broke into the Khsach Kandal district home of the kiosk owner, beating his daughter and son-in-law to force them to reveal the location of the family’s valuables. They said the robbers made away with $30,000 in cash and $6,500 worth of gold.
On Sunday, Kandal provincial police chief Iv Chamroeun said the two suspected gang leaders were arrested Wednesday and sent to court. Provincial court prosecutor Lim Sokuntha said the pair was still being questioned. They declined to reveal the men’s names, claiming it would jeopardize the investigation.
Pen Rath, the police chief of neighboring Kompong Cham province, said six of their alleged accomplices were arrested on Friday and Saturday in two separate operations in the province and handed over to police in Kandal, where the crime occurred.
Mr. Rath said the six suspects were arrested while in the process of planning another armed robbery of a market vendor in Kompong Cham.
“We thwarted it and arrested them successfully,” he said.
In a separate case, three armed men robbed a cassava trader at his home in Kratie province Saturday night and got away with 90 million riel, or about $22,500, according to
Men Vanna, the governor of Snuol district, where the robbery took place. He said the trader was not hurt and police had not identified any suspects.
