The Counter Counterfeit Committee (CCC) of the Interior Ministry has halted operations at a cigarette factory found to be producing tobacco products without a license, Khmer Times reported.

Officials closed the factory in the Sen Sok district of Phnom Penh after it was found to be engaged in illegal cigarette production, however it was unknown whether counterfeit cigarettes were being produced.
“We found that the facility had no permission to produce but we still don’t know if those cigarettes are fake,” Touch Yuthea, deputy secretary of the CCC, was quoted as saying. “We sent samples to a lab and we are now looking for the owner – as we only spoke to a floor manager,” he said.
A notice issued by Phnom Penh Municipal Court deputy prosecutor, Ngin Pich, said the floor manager, a Chinese national, had been questioned, and that the factory’s Chinese owner and other stakeholders were being sought.
Confiscated cigarettes included those without popular brand names Marlboro and LM, the newspaper said.