This is the first part of a Mongabay series investigating Cambodia’s illicit timber trade. Read Part Two.

Several Cambodian journalists contributed to this report, but have requested anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the story.

STUNG TRENG, Cambodia — Rare timber species likely logged from Cambodia’s embattled protected forests have been exported to Vietnam and China for years by Angkor Plywood, one of the country’s most notorious logging companies, Mongabay can reveal.

Over a year-long investigation, Mongabay has acquired documents and testimonies, as well as photo and video evidence, that show Angkor Plywood has been illegally logging timber from Cambodian protected areas and violating various laws by exporting sawn logs internationally. The company has done this for years with impunity, in part due to the connections of the company’s management.

Angkor Plywood was established by its chairman, Chea Pov, a man who has worked his way up Cambodia’s timber business, in 2011 with Taiwanese national Lu Chu Chang. The latter previously headed the Cambodian Timber Industry Association and developed a reputation in the early 2000s for illegally felling protected resin trees belonging to Indigenous communities.

Together, Pov and Chang have built a timber empire focusing on the beleaguered Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary, a nearly 490,000-hectare (1.2-million-acre) lowland rainforest in northern Cambodia. Its flat topography and proximity to numerous transit arteries, coupled with the sanctuary’s rich mineral deposits and formerly lush forests, have made it a lucrative target for loggers and miners.

Mongabay has previously uncovered logging routes and timber trails that lead back to Think Biotech, another company chaired by Chang that owns a 34,000-hectare (84,000-acre) concession on the eastern border of Prey Lang in Kratie province. (Think Biotech changed its name to Holy Plantation in December 2023, according to commerce ministry records.)

Collaborating with mining companies and local loggers while allegedly bribing authorities who are supposed to prevent forest crimes, Chang and Pov have repeatedly been accused of logging protected forest inside Prey Lang, laundering it through the Holy Plantation concession, where Chang operates a “sustainable” timber plantation, and then selling it to Angkor Plywood.

Pov has connections to two other companies that also own concessions on the western border of Prey Lang in Preah Vihear province: Thy Nga and P.N.T.

Numerous investigations by journalists, academics and activists have alleged that together, Holy Plantation, Thy Nga and P.N.T. launder protected timber for Angkor Plywood — allegations that Chang and Pov have consistently denied.

These accusations date back years, with the U.K.-based Environmental Investigation Agency warning in 2018 that Angkor Plywood, among other timber companies, was “at risk of involvement in the illegal Cambodian timber trade to Vietnam.” In an unpublished report from 2021, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) labeled Angkor Plywood an “existential threat” to Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary. USAID canceled its conservation project in Prey Lang shortly after the report was written.

Mongabay also found evidence that some of the company’s dubiously sourced timber is turned into plywood, which Angkor Plywood then sells to a variety of Chinese and U.S. companies in the Sihanoukville Special Economic Zone (SEZ). The plywood is then made into engineered wood flooring products that are shipped internationally, notably to one of the largest flooring companies in the U.S., AHF Products.

But during the course of this investigation, evidence has come to light that suggests Angkor Plywood has been exporting more than just tainted plywood.

Lost in Hong Kong

Shipping records acquired by Mongabay and dated from 2021 to late 2023 show that Angkor Plywood has been exporting timber for a Hong Kong-registered company called PAR International Holdings Pte. Ltd. via Vietnam. The wood sold was listed as Grade 1 timber, the most valuable grade behind luxury timber, according to Cambodia’s Grade 1-3 classifications. The export of luxury timber remains banned, while numerous restrictions also apply to timber species grades 1 through 3.

Vietnam has long been a destination country for Cambodia’s illicit timber, largely to fuel its own domestic market for luxury furniture, but also serving as a transit country to China, the United States and the European Union.

Each of Angkor Plywood’s shipments were valued at tens of thousands of dollars, amounting to hundreds, sometimes thousands of metric tons of wood, with the most recent shipment from Aug. 23, 2023, valued at $195,000 for 390 cubic meters (nearly 13,800 cubic feet) of chhlik timber (Terminalia alata). The species is often made into furniture and frequently targeted by loggers in Cambodia as luxury species have become harder to find, inflating the value of the viable species that remain.

A government source familiar with the export process, who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of Angkor Plywood’s timber exports, said it shouldn’t have been possible for Angkor Plywood to export the range of Grade 1 species listed in export documents. These species include sralau (Lagerstroemia calyculata), krakoh (Sindora siamensis), sokram (Xylia xylocarpa), pchek (Shorea obtusa) and chhlik; all predominantly found in protected areas where logging is illegal. Sralau, for instance, is illegal to harvest because it’s listed as a rare or endangered species by the Cambodian Forestry Administration.

“Those species would be out of the question, we don’t allow this,” the government source said. “That would be at the discretion and decision of the [Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries], but normally, those species would be under the protection of the [Ministry of Environment]. We made a decision a long time ago to ensure that those wood species are not cut and sold, even in the concession land.”

In November 2023, when reporters visited 200 Hennessey Road in Hong Kong, the address listed for PAR Holdings International, there was no sign that the company occupied any space in the building. Staff working there had not heard of PAR International Holdings and the phone number listed on the shipping data did not match any records within the building.

Neither the email address nor the phone number listed for PAR International Holdings were in service when reporters tried to make contact. A similarly named company in Singapore, with no known presence in Hong Kong, did not respond to questions sent by Mongabay.

The shipping documents all list Keo Sopheap as the customs broker. Sopheap works at OBS Logistics, a shipping company whose website proudly lists clients including firms owned by ruling party senator Kok An and notorious tycoon Kith Meng. Yet Angkor Plywood is notably absent from this list.

Im Phal, chair of OBS Logistics, confirmed that his company had shipped timber for Angkor Plywood, but said he was unaware of its reputation for illegal logging.

“We haven’t exported for them this year,” Phal told Mongabay in a July phone interview. “I don’t know about their license, but no exports. We haven’t exported for them for about two years now.”

When told that documents show OBS Logistics brokered the customs on the $195,000 shipment of Grade 1 processed timber to PAR International Holdings as recently as Aug. 23, 2023, Phal requested to see the documents to check their authenticity.

After verifying the document, Phal then sent Mongabay a promotional video for Think Biotech, which makes claims as to the legality of the company’s timber sourcing in its opening scene, saying that the video “proves everything.”

When asked how OBS Logistics ensures the legality of the timber it has exported for Angkor Plywood, Phal ducked the question, instead saying: “The most important thing is other companies are illegally smuggling, exporting wood, you don’t even know about. They don’t even pay tax to the government, it is serious.”

It’s difficult to determine whether these timber shipments ever made their way to Hong Kong or simply stopped in Vietnam. Likewise, it’s impossible to definitively gauge the legality of them without knowing where the trees were felled or whether the shipment labeled chhlik was actually rarer luxury timber. But Angkor Plywood’s reputation for illegal logging, coupled with the species exported, suggests the timber could have originated from Cambodia’s protected areas.

Hong Kong authorities have previously seized luxury timber imported from Cambodia, but authorities on the Cambodian side have never made public the findings of subsequent investigations.

The apparent lack of appetite among the government for apprehending timber smugglers shouldn’t be surprising, according to an expert with more than a decade of experience in Cambodia’s logistics sector. They said that OBS Logistics was well-known for handling timber shipments and for its alleged relationships with officials tasked with producing the paperwork to ensure the smooth export of illicit timber — a claim echoed by another source within the Cambodian timber industry.

The logistics expert, who requested anonymity as they still work in the logistics sector, said timber is loaded into containers at Angkor Plywood’s facility in Kandal province. From there, it either goes to the Sihanoukville SEZ or the Phnom Penh SEZ, depending on the destination.

‘Out of the question’

Heng Kimhong, president of the Cambodian Youth Network Association, which has monitored illegal logging in Prey Lang, explained how economic land concessions gave cover to logging operations inside protected forests, the timber from which is then sold to Angkor Plywood through a network of brokers.

“Sometimes Angkor Plywood hire within local communities, sometimes they bring workers from other provinces, other times they’re the staff of the companies that own the economic land concessions,” he said. “Then Angkor Plywood export to Vietnam, China and sometimes other places. Once it gets to these other countries, it’s hard to say what happens.”

In October 2023, Kimhong’s organization was among the civil society groups that called on the government to reject Angkor Plywood’s request for an extension to its timber export license as many species shipped abroad by the company could only be found in protected areas. Kimhong said he still hasn’t received a response from the government.

However, the company’s license to export sawn or processed timber expired on Dec. 31, 2023, after repeated extensions dating back to its last five-year license, issued in 2016.

Speaking anonymously, one government official aware of the situation said they didn’t believe the company had been granted another extension. They added that while Angkor Plywood is free to export plywood and flooring products, it can’t export sawn logs or processed timber without a license.

Neither representatives from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries nor the Ministry of Environment responded to questions sent by Mongabay.

Cambodian timber, Vietnamese homes

In 2006, Cambodia banned the export of unprocessed logs, roughly cut timber and square sawn logs larger than 25 centimeters (10 inches) in width or thickness. But documents seen by Mongabay show Angkor Plywood has regularly violated this law.

The company’s exports to Vietnam in 2020 are detailed by Vietnamese traders on numerous Facebook groups where packing lists name Angkor Plywood as the supplier of shipments of bằng lăng, the Vietnamese name for Lagerstroemia calyculata, also known as sralau in Khmer.

The species was initially ignored by loggers who favored higher-value trees such as the now critically endangered Siamese rosewood (Dalbergia cochinchinensis). But since Cambodia’s forests have been mostly picked clean of the highest-value species, L. calyculata has become a relatively abundant alternative hardwood, making it a prized target for loggers.

Numerous shipments of timber from Angkor Plywood to Vietnam over the course of November 2020 detail the size of square sawn logs exported: almost three-quarters of the 430 pieces of timber sold by Angkor Plywood are described as wider or thicker than 25 cm in four separate packing lists. Fourteen pieces were more than 50 cm (20 in) in width or thickness, more than double the legal limit for export.

The code GMDU seen in photographs of the shipping containers is registered to Gemadept, a Vietnamese shipping company with a branch in Phnom Penh. Staff there confirmed that the containers pictured by Vietnamese timber traders did indeed belong to Gemadept and that Angkor Plywood was a client, but refused to divulge details of continued exports for the company.

When asked how the logs had ended up in the company’s shipping containers in Vietnam, Gemadept’s staff in Cambodia said they didn’t know and that the case was “beyond their control.” Emailed questions to the company’s head office in Vietnam went unanswered.

Another packing list, dated March 19, 2022, shows that Angkor Plywood shipped 1,020 m3 (36,000 ft3) of Grade 1 timber to Truong Thinh Tay Ninh Import Export in Vietnam’s Tây Ninh province, which borders Cambodia. Again, the species listed are all reportedly found predominantly in Cambodia’s protected areas and the document bears the stamp and signature of Chea Pov. Mongabay has since verified the document with a government official familiar with the export process.

Kimhong of Cambodia Youth Network Association said: “We know the situation of the forests in Vietnam, they do not have enough wood for their own market and so much of their wood is collected illegally from Cambodia and from Laos, so the European Union needs to reconsider their purchases from Vietnam.”

Vietnam signed an agreement with the EU in 2018 and then a separate agreement with the U.S. in 2021 to combat the sale of illegal timber, but activists warn that the existing legislation isn’t enough to prevent illicit timber from transiting through Vietnam to other destinations.

“U.S. and EU laws introduced under civil society pressure in recent years are well-meaning, however, as we see too often, they are largely toothless because of lack of enforcement,” said Marcus Hardtke, a veteran forest activist with decades of experience in Cambodia. “There is too little capacity to look beyond the basic requirements on paper. So, if a company, country or shipment is not specially flagged and paid attention to, it’s smooth sailing for the importers.”

Angkor Plywood branching out from Prey Lang

While tracking timber exports is tricky, establishing where Angkor Plywood sources the wood is much simpler.

Sat in a café in Stung Treng’s provincial capital, a former logger detailed how they had worked for a company called T.S.M.W., felling trees some 55 kilometers (34 miles) away in one of the least-explored forests of Cambodia.

“Mostly Think Biotech [Holy Plantation] buys the wood [from T.S.M.W.], Oknha [tycoon] Pov is the big boss,” the former T.S.M.W. logger told Mongabay in January. “Everyone knows the businessman behind it is Oknha Pov, he works as a middleman for illegal loggers, he takes timber from everywhere and sells it for them. Everyone knows him. He’s always taking the wood from here and from everywhere, especially Prey Lang.”

The logger requested anonymity for fear of reprisals from both their former employer and the local authorities, who the logger alleged are paid off by T.S.M.W. to look the other way. Mongabay was unable to independently verify this claim.

“The company uses the tactic of transporting timber from the forest, outside the concession, through a network of loggers,” the former logger said. “They transport the timber in koy-yun [small farming equipment vehicles] or roy-yun kai ch’nai [local homemade trucks designed to carry timber] to the trucks which are inside the company’s land in Siem Pang, between Sesan and Siem Pang districts. That’s where the sawmills are.”

While T.S.M.W. had been granted a 5,602-hectare (13,843-acre) concession within Veun-Sai Siem Pang National Park, since it arrived in 2022 the logging frenzy has spilled out over the concession’s borders and deep into the lush forest of the national park.

The former logger detailed how protected timber is logged inside the national park and laundered through T.S.M.W.’s concession where it’s sawn, loaded onto trucks and shipped across the Sekong River for transport.

Time- and date-stamped videos with coordinates provided by the former logger supported their claims, as does satellite imagery that shows winding logging routes being cut illegally from sawmills inside the concession deep into the forest beyond the company’s designated borders.

T.S.M.W. hadn’t formally submitted a land-use plan when Mongabay initially reported on the logging operation in 2023. Khim Finan, spokesperson for the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, said he didn’t have much information regarding T.S.M.W., which he said are “making boundary road around the project and they are preparing the land around 600 hectares [1,480 acres].”

Documents verified by local officials and satellite imagery of the demarcated border roads show T.S.M.W.’s concession spans 5,602 hectares.

Mongabay’s previous investigation identified Meuk Saphannareth, deputy director of Cambodia’s prisons department, as the ultimate owner of T.S.M.W., an allegation that Saphannareth denied at the time. Since then, Mongabay has not been able to contact Saphannareth or other T.S.M.W. representatives.

“There are four trucks going out from Siem Pang each night,” the former logger told Mongabay in January. “They take the timber to powerful people. Oknha Pov buys most of it, but the company [T.S.M.W.] has connections to many rich, big people.”

While T.S.M.W.’s concession has no formal purpose, it’s currently one of the many logging operations, both legal and otherwise, that feed Angkor Plywood’s demand for timber.

Reporters previously confirmed that trucks laden with timber left T.S.M.W.’s concession and made their way 500 km (310 mi) south to Angkor Plywood’s facility in Kandal province, just outside Phnom Penh. Pov himself confirmed that he had purchased timber from Saphannareth, although he claimed it was a one-time deal — something the former logger dismissed.

Veun Sai-Siem Pang National Park has seen a steep rise in deforestation since 2022, when T.S.M.W. began its logging operation, but the government has so far not investigated the allegations raised by Mongabay’s 2023 report. Instead, it has gone to lengths to deny Prime Minister Hun Manet’s connection to Saphannareth.

The park itself was only formally protected in 2023, but has long been home to the critically endangered giant ibis (Thaumatibis gigantea), as well as sun bears (Helarctos malayanus) and clouded leopards (Neofelis nebulosa), both of which are listed as vulnerable on the IUCN Red List. The yellow-cheeked crested gibbon (Nomascus gabriellae) population has, in recent years, drawn tourists to the remote park, further enhancing the livelihoods of local communities familiar with the forest.

The continued existence of these creatures is why Veun Sai-Siem Pang National Park was upgraded from a “biodiversity corridor” managed by the Ministry of Environment to a national park protected by the ministry in 2023. Previously, researchers found that the park’s ecosystem provided services ranging from carbon and water storage to air purification and soil rejuvenation worth nearly $130 million per year.

Yet the Ministry of Environment has repeatedly declined to answer questions and so far, doesn’t appear to have taken any action to prevent T.S.M.W. from illegally gutting the national park or selling the timber to Angkor Plywood.

“They [the company] are connected to all local government, to the police, the courts,” the former logger said. “Oknha Chey, who runs the company, is a three-star general.”

Mongabay previously revealed that Oknha Chey, or “Victorious tycoon,” was the alias used by Meuk Saphannareth — T.S.M.W.’s ultimate owner and the deputy director of Cambodia’s prisons department, as well as a three-star military general — to traffic timber through T.S.M.W.’s concession.

And so while the government has pledged to plant a million trees each year, it has repeatedly — almost annually — denied the existence of large-scale logging operations, instead focusing enforcement efforts on small-scale forest crimes rather than tackling the politically connected networks of timber traffickers who operate in plain sight.

Since taking office in 2023, Environment Minister Eang Sophalleth has insisted on a zero-tolerance policy for illegal loggers, and in September banned a tycoon from clearing forest after irregularities were found. But many similar operations continue unabated.

“Large-scale logging and forest destruction is ongoing in Cambodia, despite government denials,” said Hardtke, the veteran activist. “Cartels like Angkor Plywood are a driving force for this destruction, and for systemic corruption.

“A countrywide network like Angkor Plywood is highly profitable, especially if one has the means to ignore the usual extortion and red tape in Cambodia’s timber business,” he added. “The plunder of the last intact forests will continue until these issues are addressed by all stakeholders.”

Banner image: In June 2024, stacks of timber were seen piled outside Angkor Plywood’s facility in Kandal province. Much of it is believed to be sourced from Cambodia’s protected areas. Image by Gerald Flynn / Mongabay.