Interior Ministry police on Friday incinerated more than five tons of counterfeit medicine in Phnom Penh’s Dangkao district—the first time the ministry has destroyed a large quantity of fake drugs, according to officials.
Pol Seang, administration bureau chief of the Interior Ministry’s anti-economic crime police department, said 46 different kinds of drugs were set on fire after being seized from a property in Chamkar Mon district in 2012.
“We confiscated those medicines from a Vietnamese woman, Vang Doek Nay, who escaped away when we conducted a raid,” he said, adding that the suspect, who has never been apprehended, is believed to have imported the illicit goods from her home country.
Mr. Seang said that although the ministry had incinerated illicit goods many times, this was the first time a cache of exclusively counterfeit medicines had gone up in flames.
Meas Vyrith, secretary-general of the National Authority for Combating Drugs, said fake medicines have the potential to cause serious damage.
“This medicine cannot treat diseases, but it can destroy people’s health further,” he said.
