According to this, top military generals & police chiefs in Cambodia earn max $800/month incl benefits; majors get around $320. Military personnel are not legally allowed to own companies. So where do the lavish lifestyles come from? A 🧵 1/
https://twitter.com/MechDara1/status/1745591837661024289
The obvious answer is corruption. But that’s oversimplifying things, because this isn’t about individual people abusing their position. All ranks of police & military are expected to engage in the patronage system, which works like a giant pyramid scheme. 2/
To get a job in the first place, you often have to buy your position. That might mean bribing the boss directly, or someone who actually did police training might sell their position. A detective role goes for around $30k incl replacing all personal details in the system. 3/
Once you’re in, your superior will expect you to give them up to half your earnings every month. Obv this means that you can command the same from your underlings as you go up the pyramid. But the big money doesn’t come from salaries. 4/
Depending on your position, you can expect to generate most of your income through a mix of 4 main streams. The first is obviously seeking bribes, from street level shake downs for traffic violations up to high level payments by org crime networks to look the other way. 5/
The second is acting as a gatekeeper for legal and illegal businesses who will need to give you a cut or pay you protection money so you don’t hassle them or find reasons to shut them down. 6/
The third is providing direct security to legal & illegal businesses. This is very useful in Cambodia where only armed forces are allowed to carry weapons. A dodgy casino for example might pay a police or military chief to loan some men as bodyguards, who also earn extra cash. 7/
And the final one, of course, is using state resources, teams, vehicles etc to run illicit trades yourself, or to facilitate trafficking of drugs, people, timber, etc for bigger org crime networks. This is common across SEA. Low level officers are expected to do as instructed. 8/
These practices are endemic. You’ll often see vehicles and packages containing drugs for example that have stickers or markers so police/soldiers know they have prepaid and should wave them through. /9
But the important things to understand are a) the value of these positions are not the salaries, it’s access to commanding illicit wealth and b) low level officers cannot survive financially unless they take part. Corruption *is* the system, it’s not an anomaly. 10/10
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