After being arrested by police at Phnom Penh International Airport last Wednesday, two Vietnamese women were charged on Friday with allegedly attempting to smuggle nearly 3 kg of methamphetamines to Malaysia, officials said yesterday.
Phnom Penh Municipal Court deputy prosecutor Sok Roeun said yesterday that Himach Ro, 30, and Am Mary, 24, had been charged with drug smuggling and placed in provisional detention at Prey Sar Prison.
Mr Roeun’s clerk Chhieng Se said the arrest of the two women had occurred as part of a joint operation between airport police and officers from the Interior Ministry’s internal security police bureau.
Mr Se said he had been asked to witness the seizure of the drugs at the airport last Wednesday and confirmed that a total of 2.8 kg of “ice,” or methamphetamine, was found in the suspects’ backpacks.
Phnom Penh International Airport police chief Chhuor Kimny alleged yesterday that the two women had been attempting to board a morning flight from Phnom Penh to Kuala Lumpur when police intervened.
Mr Kimny said roughly 1.5 kg of methamphetamine, including the weight of the plastic covering the drugs, was found hidden in the lining of each of the two suspects’ backpacks. He added that he was unaware if the two women had been used as drug “mules” by a third party, or whether they had planned to smuggle the drugs on their own.
“We only cooperated with our internal security police at the Interior Ministry…as they had been following [the women] since they crossed the border [from Vietnam] on November 22,” he said. Officials from the internal security bureau were unavailable yesterday.
