THE Cambodian military has arrested six officers, including two generals, for arms smuggling in the country.
Its military police arrested them after 105 rifles were discovered on Nov 12 and 13 in Phnom Proek district.
Of the 105 weapons, 100 were AK-47's machine guns, two 12.7mm heavy machine guns and three M79 grenade launchers.
According to a Phnom Penh Post report, investigators said they were still hunting down more accomplices involved in the arms smuggling.
Sao Sokha, deputy commander of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces and commander of the National Military Police, said the six officers were arrested after warrants were issued by the court.
He said several of the six arrested had already confessed their involvement with arms smuggling.
"Now, the case is in the hands of the court who will continue the investigation and see how many of them were really involved," Sokha said.
He said there have been two gun smuggling cases so far this year but authorities did not identify or locate the people involved in the first case, which happened on Oct 19 in Battambang province's Kamrieng district.
The Post learned that military officials found 42 rifle magazines and 508 bullets during a joint patrol of the border in Battambang province's Kamrieng district.
Sokha said that after questioning those involved, it seems likely that the two cases are connected and it was the work of just one group of smugglers.
"The ammunition we found in the first case could be used to load the guns we seized in the second case," he said.
Sokha said the first suspect was arrested on Nov 19 in Siem Reap province before two others were located and arrested on Nov 20 and 21 in Battambang.
Three more suspects were then arrested on Nov 22 in Phnom Penh.
He said one of the suspects is a two star military general, or Major General, and another is a one star general, or Brigadier General.
They are the commander and deputy commander in charge of a weapon maintenance and repair workshop.
Two other suspects are a captain and lieutenant colonel whose job was to repair weapons in that same workshop and the last two suspects are the deputy commander for the Kamrieng district Military Police and a warrant officer from the Phnom Proek district Military Police.
He added that the military police was trying to figure out others who are involved because although they were in military uniform, their names were not on the enrolment list.
"So we cannot say if they are military but using false names or people who were just disguised as military. We'll only know once we manage to arrest them," he said.