PHNOM PENH: Officials at Cambodia’s immigration checkpoints identified almost 3,000 criminal violations in the first nine months of the year, with the majority involving the use of forged documents.
They identified 2,921 cases, involving 5,262 people from 93 nationalities.
Of the total, 2,287 involved attempts to enter the Kingdom by 4,271 people, while 634 cases involved 991 people attempting to exit, according to the Ministry of Interior’s General Department of Immigration (GDI).
Among those attempting to enter, 103 people were arrested and sent to court, while the remainder were denied entry.
Several of the individuals were barred from entry due to their place on watchlists, while others used forged passports, fake visas, counterfeit entry and exit stamps or other falsified papers.
Others had no clear purpose for travel or held invalid passports.
Of the 991 individuals who attempted to leave the Kingdom, immigration officials detained 270, then sent them to court. Another 721 were identified as victims of human trafficking and allowed to return to their homes.
During the same period, GDI officials prevented 218 Cambodian nationals from exiting the country, after suspicions were raised that they were at risk of being trafficked.
It reported that during the same nine-month period, 5,410 Cambodian nationals left the country through legitimate recruitment operations.
The GDI also “welcomed” 5,568 Cambodian nationals who were deported from foreign nations, often as a result of criminal charges.
Of the deportees, 4,477 came from Thailand, 387 from Malaysia, 334 from China, 199 from South Korea, 56 each from the US and Vietnam, 31 from Singapore, 14 from Japan, eight from the Philippines, and three each from Laos and Canada. - The Phnom Penh Post/ANN
