Authorities have arrested oknha Hy Kimhong \u2014 and 13 bodyguards in Phnom Penh who tried to protect him \u2014 over a fraudulent land investment scheme that ensnared hundreds of Kampot residents, according to local media reports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hy Kimhong, owner of Piphup Deimeas Investment, faced complaints<\/a> from 323 people who alleged the company failed to pay returns on $6 million of investment in land. Provincial police summoned the oknha and another businessman, oknha Cheng Sanghak, for questioning, according to local newspaper Koh Santepheap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On June 26<\/a>, the two oknha sent representatives to negotiate with 500 people. But on August 7<\/a>, Hy Kimhong was arrested in Phnom Penh for alleged land fraud, Koh Santepheap said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thirteen bodyguards were also taken into custody for blocking authorities and using violence against them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The land investment project is located in Trach Tong commune in Kampong Speu\u2019s Oudong district, according to an advertisement on a Piphup Deimeas Facebook page.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hy Kimhong was promoted to be an adviser<\/a> to National Assembly president Heng Samrin with a rank equivalent to secretary of state on February 16. He received his oknha title last year<\/a>, on October 21, according to Kamnotra records. His associate, Cheng Sanghak, was made oknha<\/a> on August 18, 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Commerce Ministry lists Hy Kimhong, with an address in Pur Senchey, as director of the Piphup Deimeas Group as well as AMZ Microfinance Institution and five other companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Update (August 10):<\/strong> The Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Thursday, August 10 charged Hy Kimhong with fraud under Article 380 and his bodyguards with aggravated intentional violence under Article 218, according to pro-government Fresh News. According to the Criminal Code, both fraud and aggravated violence are punishable by two to five years in prison.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Authorities have arrested oknha Hy Kimhong \u2014 and 13 bodyguards in Phnom Penh who tried to protect him \u2014 over a fraudulent land investment scheme that ensnared hundreds of Kampot residents, according to local media reports.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2692,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pgc_sgb_lightbox_settings":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_caption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_nocaption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_hide":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[111,34,112,35],"class_list":["post-4058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-update","tag-hy-kimhong","tag-land-conflict","tag-piphup-deimeas","tag-gazette"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kamnotra.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kamnotra.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kamnotra.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kamnotra.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kamnotra.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4058"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/kamnotra.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4058\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4189,"href":"https:\/\/kamnotra.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4058\/revisions\/4189"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kamnotra.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kamnotra.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kamnotra.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kamnotra.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}