The Khmer riche: making a killing in Cambodia

Kith Meng is an entrepreneur whose parents were killed by the Khmer Rouge (All Photos: Agnes Dherbeys)

A mansion being built in Phnom Penh for prime minter Hun Sen

Victor in his parents' luxurious home in Phnom Penh

Sophy(far right), the 'Paris Hilton of Cambodia' at a shoot

February 14, 2010
By Andrew Marshall
The Sunday Times

Meet the spoilt, young elite who, unlike most Cambodians, enjoy the privileges of wealth - and aren’t ashamed to flaunt it

I am going to drive a little fast now. Is that okay?” There is one place in Cambodia where you can hold a cold beer in one hand and a warm Kalashnikov in the other, and 21-year-old Victor is driving me there. We’re powering along Phnom Penh’s airport road with Oasis on his Merc’s sound system and enough guns in the trunk to sink a Somali pirate boat. Victor is rich and life is sweet. His father is commander of the Cambodian infantry. He has a place reserved for him at L’Ecole Spéciale Militaire de Saint-Cyr. And, in his front passenger seat, there is a thin, silent man with a Chinese handgun: his bodyguard.

“His name is Klar,” says Victor. “It means tiger.”

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