A Cambodian businessman, reportedly being investigated by Canadian police after he tried to transport $600,000 in cash to Cambodia, said Tuesday that he never claimed to be Prime Minister Hun Sen’s adviser, as a Canadian newspaper stated last week.
Interviewed in Phnom Penh Tuesday, Sy Veng Chun said he was a private consultant and has not worked for the Cambodian government.
He added that he did not know why the Canadian police were suspicious of his possession of the money.
Last week, Canadian newspaper the Montreal Gazette reported that the Canadian government was trying to confiscate the $600,000, which authorities found in Sy Veng Chun’s suitcase at Montreal’s Dorval Airport as he prepared to board a flight to Cambodia last year.
Citing an affidavit by Canadian police investigator Caroline Leonard, the newspaper said police believed the money was “tainted by criminality” and that Sy Veng Chun claimed to be a paid adviser to Hun Sen.
“The negligence of the [Canadian police] authorities as well as the representative of the attorney general of Canada made it so that the affidavit of Caroline Leonard…is not up to date,” Sy Veng Chun’s lawyer, Daniel Rock, stated in a letter dated Oct 25. The letter did not provide further details of the investigation.
Sy Veng Chun on Tuesday declined to comment on the police’s suspicion as to the “criminality” of the money. But, he said he was not charged with any crime.
“I am not in jail. I am here,” he said.
He said he had been carrying all the necessary paperwork to file a customs declaration for the money and did not know why Canadian authorities seized the cash.
“The [Canadian police] cannot keep this money,” he said, adding that he was bringing the money into Cambodia to repay a client.
The client, whom he declined to identify, had paid Sy Veng Chun’s company in 1997 for assistance in her planned immigration to Canada, he said.
The client later changed her mind, and the company was
obliged to pay her back, Sy Veng Chun said.
“This was for reimbursing the debt,” he said.
According to the Gazette, Sy Veng Chun said he carried the money in cash because he did not trust the Cambodian banking system.
Sy Veng Chun said he does not know where the money is being kept or who has possession of it. But he said his lawyer was fighting a court motion by the Canadian government, which is trying to confiscate the cash.
