Police in Stung Treng province confiscated a truckload of illegally logged wood on Sunday and are investigating a Forestry Administration official who tried to take the haul off their hands following the seizure.
Provincial anti-economic crime police chief Phat Sophana said Monday that his officers stopped the truck at a checkpoint on National Road 7 in Stung Treng City to check for the required transport license. But after pulling the vehicle over, he said, the driver and another man jumped out and fled on foot, leaving behind a haul of first- and second-grade wood.
“Now we are keeping the truck and the wood at the Forestry Administration’s division office in Stung Treng City and we are building a case that we can send to court,” Mr. Sophana said, adding that the quantity of the seized wood was still being calculated.
“The driver and his colleague escaped but we know the identities of these two people; they came from Kratie province,” he added.
Mr. Sophana said he learned the identity of the men from his subordinates, but that he did not know how the officers could have known the names of the men, as they escaped. He declined to provide contact information for those officers.
The police chief did say that he suspected the deputy chief of the Forestry Administration’s Thala Barivat triage, Sam Borin, of being somehow involved in logging the wood because he attempted to take the timber away from the checkpoint on the strength of a license he could not produce.
“Mr. Borin came to the scene and told us that he wanted to take the wood away for the person who owned the wood and had the permission letter to transport it, but he did not show us the document,” he said.
“If we find out that Mr. Borin is involved with this wood, we will take action following the law,” he added.
A man who answered a mobile phone belonging to Mr. Borin, whose number was provided to reporters by the forestry official’s staff, claimed not to be Mr. Borin.
