Two Land Brokers Jailed for $ 700,000 Fraud

 

Buth Reaksmey Kongkea

 Phnom Penh Municipal Court on February 20, 2023  jailed two men for allegedly forging public documents and committing land fraud involving nearly $700,0000 in Kampong Speu province’s Baseth district in 2018.

Judge Say Sreyleak named the two accused as Pov Sakhorn, 57, a high school teacher, and  Suon Sophal, 53; a land broker. Both lived Baseth district.

Judge Sreyleak said Sakhorn was jailed for one year but his prison term shall be reduced to only two months in the prison with the rest of his sentence completely suspended. 

 She said that Sophal (who is the mastermind of the fraud) was sentenced by the court to two years in prison.

She added that both were charged with two counts of “Fraud and Forgery of Public Document” under Articles 377, 378 and 630 of the Criminal Code. 

Judge Sreyleak said that they were arrested on November 15 last year. They were sued by Zhang Chili, 49, a Taiwanese investor and owner of a garment factory named “Hong Long Su Co. Ltd located in Baseth district, after they allegedly cheated her out of $770,000 in a land fraud involving more than 12 hectares.

 According to the court’s document, there are three accused men in this case. 

On November 15 last year, the Phnom Penh Municipal Court sentenced Chin Ry, 40, a land broker, to a suspended jail term of one year. It sentenced in absentia Sakhorn and Sophal (who had been at large at that time) to two years in prison each. 

The court ordered for Sakhorn and Sophal’s arrests.

The court also ordered the three of them to jointly pay a total of $660,000 in damages and another 40 million riels (about $10,000) in compensation to the victim.

Sakhorn and Sophal were later arrested on November 16, 2022 in accordance with the court’s warrant.

 After their arrests, both appealed against their convictions in absentia and asked the court for a retrial. The court conducted the retrial on February 8. 

The two accused could not be reached for comment yesterday. 

However, during their hearing on February 8, Sophal confessed that forged the land documents (by forging the names and the signatures of villagers) by the orders from Ry, who is the victim’s representative and their supervisor.   

Sophal said that he could not buy the lands from the farmers at that time because  Ry did not offer him enough money as contracted.

 “The reason why we could not buy the farmers’ lands for the plaintiff as contracted was because Ry had always kept money offered by the plaintiff for his own uses. And he did not give it to us in time,” he said. 

Sakhorn confessed that he worked with Sophal and Ry just to get a commission from the plaintiff and the landlords only. 

He said that he did not know about the forgery of land documents or relate with Sopha’s illegal; activities.

Sakhorn asked the court to overturn his absentia-conviction, drop his charges and release him from the prison. 

 Ry said that he was the representative of Zhang Chili (victim) at that time. He received a total of $770,000 from the victim in order to buy more than 12 hectares of the farmers’ lands in Srong commune.

 Ry said that after receiving the above money, he later gave a total of  $ 660, 000 to Sophal and Sakhorn for buying the lands from the farmers and for the fee  of the land titles making.

He said that he kept $ 110,000 to spend for landfills and clearance the land bought. 

Ry denied that he had forged the land titles because they were prepared by Sophal and Sakhorn with the local authorities.