Ten people were arrested on Saturday morning in Kampong Speu’s Chbar Mon commune for allegedly attempting to steal garments from a shipping container en route to Preah Sihanouk province for export to Europe, police officials said yesterday.

According to Sok Khemarin, chief of the Ministry of Interior’s penal police department, authorities had launched a joint operation following a report made about the heist of the garment container belonging to Top Fame Garments Ltd.

“We launched the operation at night. We could have arrested more people, but it was dark and some of them had escaped into the forest,” he said, adding that the suspects were breaking open the container with a saw-like machine when they were stopped and arrested.

“Some of [the suspects] have stolen a few times, while others only did it once. We tracked them down a long time ago but did not have the chance to arrest them,” he added.

According to a post on the National Police’s Facebook page, there were more than 30 large bags of garments in the container. Representatives from the company could not be reached for comment.