There was quite a scene in Takeo province this morning as Interior Minister Sar Sokha personally presided over the destruction of nearly 800 tons of counterfeit cigarettes and raw materials. Over 370 tons of that was finished fake cigarettes alone—cheap knockoffs of major local and international brands like ESSE and JET. The remaining hundreds of tons consisted of heavy manufacturing machinery and crates of raw tobacco.
The massive haul was seized during a joint crackdown by Cambodian and Chinese authorities. Back on June 12, police raided the operation after tracking down a hidden hub in Takeo, where the syndicate had disguised their illicit factory and warehouse as a legitimate commercial plant. During the raid, officers arrested the site manager—a 44-year-old Chinese national who turned out to be a fugitive wanted by Guangzhou police. He was promptly deported back to China.
Across Cambodia, local mom-and-pop grocery shops and roadside stalls line almost every street, where workers routinely pull over on their motorbikes after a long day to grab a pack. Some of these fakes are packaged so convincingly they look genuine, but they smoke harsh and are packed with impurities. Burning those hundreds of tons of illegal tobacco all at once today finally clears a major poison out of the local market.
