SeaTac couple plead guilty to running theft ring

October 31, 2011
By John de Leon
The Seattle Times

A SeaTac couple has pleaded guilty to several charges stemming from an organized theft ring in South King County in which they paid others to steal items, which the defendants later resold.

Sara Kong, 41, and Chanthou Rim, 39, each pleaded guilty last week to six counts of first-degree attempted trafficking in stolen property and one count of first-degree conspiracy to commit organized retail theft. The couple is accused of directing others to steal items from retail stores and reselling some of the items to local markets and sending other goods to Cambodia, which prompted a parallel investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

According to the charges, Rim and Kong used “thieves to enter retail grocery and other stores to steal merchandise.” Among the thieves was a mother-daughter duo that shoplifted nearly $1,000 worth of items each day, prosecutors said. The mother and daughter told police they did it because they needed money to support their heroin addictions, according to the charges.

Record Mekong Flooding Threatens Bangkok, Phnom Penh

Tuesday, 11 October 2011
VOA News | Washington, DC

"There's nothing left, no house, no belongings, including clothes, bed and refrigerator and appliances."

United Nations officials say the capitals of Thailand and Cambodia are at risk as the worst flooding in modern times sweeps through the Mekong Basin.

Kirsten Mildren, spokeswoman for the U.N.'s humanitarian affairs agency, told VOA Tuesday that officials in Bangkok are taking urgent measures as the floodwaters bear down on the city.

"We know that there is a lot of water coming down," she said. "The government at the moment is building canals around the city. There are sand bags going up everywhere. They are doing what they can to actually stop the water coming through, but each day it seems to come closer and closer."

Mildren said the waters are also continuing to rise in Cambodia, where Phnom Penh is threatened. Across the country 183 people have died since August and almost 100,000 hectares of paddy are damaged or destroyed.

Wash. prosecutor nails shoplifting rings [part of which were sent to Cambodia for resale]

May 19, 2011
Associated Press

SEATTLE (AP) — King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg says two retail theft rings directed armies of shoplifters that cost Seattle, Wash. area stores, including Safeway and Fred Meyer, more than $6 million.

Satterberg told a Thursday morning news conference that the shoplifters — many of them drug addicts — grabbed items such as chicken breasts or razors and were paid pennies on the dollar.

In one case the operators of a small market in the Greenwood neighborhood resold stolen items at their store and online.

The other theft ring is accused of reselling stolen goods to small markets around the region and also packing them into automobile shipments destined for Cambodia.

Global Fund Hit by Millions of Dollars in Malaria Drug Thefts [-Theft also took place in Cambodia]

April 20, 2011 at 3:26 PM EDT
By: Talea Miller
PBS Newshour (USA)

Millions of dollars worth of malaria medication donated through the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria may have been lost to theft, according to internal documents obtained by the Associated Press.

The Global Fund confirmed to AP an estimated $2.5 million worth of malaria drugs may have been taken from Togo, Tanzania, Sierra Leone, Swaziland and Cambodia between 2009 and 2011. Potential theft was also found in eight other countries, most in Africa, according to the documents.

The fund has been investigating malaria medication shipments stolen and sold for profit for months -- in September, a spokesperson told the NewsHour a probe was ongoing in several countries -- but the scale is far larger than the tens of thousands of dollars originally suspected.

Arrow Slays Thief, Fellow Thieves Say [-Shot red-handed?]

Monday, June 28, 2010
The Phnom Penh Post
Police Blotter

A 19-year-old thief died in the middle of a crime spree on Tuesday night after one of his victims allegedly shot him with an arrow. The incident occurred in Battambang province’s Thmor Koul district, after the thief and two of his cohorts made off with cases of beer and cigarettes from a house in Tameun commune. Police said it was the second house they had knocked over that night. Upon realising he had been robbed, the owner of the house gave chase. The 19-year-old’s fellow bandits said the house owner shot him with an arrow, though this version of events has not been confirmed by authorities. The case has been sent to provincial court.
KOH SANTEPHEAP

In case of danger ... never call the cop in Cambodia?

Cleaning up at the scene

Thursday, 17 June 2010
Uong Ratana
The Phnom Penh Post

A police officer pockets a necklace from an unconscious motorbike driver before putting him into a waiting ambulance on the Cambodian-Japanese Friendship Bridge Tuesday. The man was knocked from his bike after unsuccessfully trying to overtake a car. (Photo by: Heng Chivoan)

Cambodian police charge 12-year-old girl with murder of 6-year old

Sat, 24 Nov 2007
DPA

Phnom Penh - Cambodian authorities have charged a 12-year-old girl with snapping her 6-year-old neighbour's neck in an attempt to rob her of a 25-dollar pair of gold earrings, police said Saturday. Sa'ang district police chief Un Savuth said Korn Mtes, 12, had allegedly lured kindergarten pupil Thong Sromouch Krahom away from her playmates to a secluded area behind a house.

"Then it appears she wrung the little one's neck and just took the earrings off her dead body," Savuth said over the telephone.

He said the incident had occurred late Thursday afternoon and Mtes had now been formally charged.

Premeditated murder carries a 20-year jail term in Cambodia, but Savuth said it would be up to the court to decide what sentence to award such a young offender if convicted.

Cambodia does not have a separate juvenile justice system.