Panhandlers who fake disabilities to glean cash from kindly picnickers at the popular weekend getaway destination of Kien Svay, just outside the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, will have to outwit police and locals determined to end their charades.
Last week, police said they rounded up five people faking disabilities, with the doubling up of legs inside baggy trousers and putting ketchup on lots of bandages the most common tricks, on tips from locals, according to Kien Svay police chief Mang Pich.
In poverty-stricken Buddhist Cambodia, to give small sums of cash to a beggar is believed to bring merit. With no formal social welfare system and one of the highest rates of amputations and injuries from landmines in the world, those maimed by mines and ex-soldiers often take to begging.
Word has spread that the riverside resort of Kien Svay offers particularly good pickings, and the number of beggars has swelled to crisis point both with the really needy and with con men seeing a chance for easy cash, locals say.
”My plan is to deploy police every weekend and check who is the real handicapped person and who is a fake,” police chief Pich said by telephone.
”If they are real, we tell them how to beg politely from tourists. If they are fake, we invite them to the police station and educate them because they bring dishonour on real disabled beggars.”
He added that fake beggars displaying rude and aggressive techniques are ruining business for restaurants in the area.
”The locals tell us who they think is real and who is not. I will not tolerate this fake beggar behaviour on my patch,” he said. — Sapa-DPA