Authorities in Koh Kong province, together with technical departments, armed forces, and the administration of Khemara Phoumin city and Smach Mean Chey sangkat, cracked down on an illegal sand-dredging site located in the Tatai Wildlife Sanctuary on October 6. Deputy Provincial Governor Hak Leng stated that the site had been used to dredge sand for land filling on privately titled and state public land. During the operation, the team found one sand dredging machine and a suction hose 15 centimetres in diameter (1.5 decimetres) about 250 meters long, along with the quantity of sand that had already been dredged and filled.
ខ្លឹម យុនវិសិដ្ឋ, director of the provincial Department of Mines and Energy, confirmed that the sand-dredging site had no mineral resource license and that amended Article 35 of the Law on Management and Exploitation of Mineral Resources would be applied. According to questioning, the owner of the machinery stated that the activity had been operating for 15 days, which by calculation sets the administrative fine at 22,500,000 riel. The calculation based on the quantity of sand dredged and filled and the market price amounts to 9,748,800 riel; therefore the fine applied will be the higher amount of 22,500,000 riel.
At the same time, វ៉េត សុនីម, deputy director of the provincial Department of Environment, stated that after verification, the sand dredging machine site and the filling site have a combined area of 12,186 square meters. Of this, the titled land covers 8,636 square meters, while the untitled land covers 3,550 square meters and lies within the Tatai Wildlife Sanctuary. This crackdown was carried out with the aim of preventing illegal mineral resource operations and encroachment on state-protected areas.
