Twenty undocumented Vietnamese laborers are being held for deportation after they were arrested Friday during a raid on a construction site for a new Acleda Bank branch in Phnom Penh’s Daun Penh district, an immigration official said.
Continuing its crackdown on foreigners living illegally in the country, the Interior Ministry’s general department of immigration also fined and warned a further 45 foreigners laboring unlawfully at the site.
“The 20 Vietnamese are being held at the immigration office and we are waiting to deport them from the country,” said Uk Heisela, chief of investigations at the immigration department, adding that a further 18 Vietnamese workers who did have passports were fined and ordered to obtain work permits.
Eighteen Koreans, four Filipinos, four Malaysians and a British man were also working illegally at the site on Monivong Boulevard, he said.
“They all have passports but some do not have work permits or were working on tourist visas, which is not allowed in Cambodia,” Major General Heisela said.
More than 1,400 Vietnamese have been deported in 2015 by the general department of immigration, which was established last year.
