PHNOM PENH - On the morning of May 12, Cambodia's local newspapers ran photos of a bedraggled figure being escorted from a small courthouse. The man, who wore a crumpled green shirt and clutched a water bottle as he leant on the shoulder of a security guard, was Top Chan Sereyvuth, a former prosecutor at the Pursat provincial court in the country's west.
During his trial, it was alleged he had ordered subordinates to extort money from a man found transporting wood through his province - just one in a long line of corrupt dealings. On May 11, judges at the court found him guilty on corruption charges and handed him a 19-year jail term. Two of his bodyguards were also sent down for 15 and 16 years respectively.
The Cambodian government welcomed Sereyvuth's conviction as
 the first high-profile case to be brought by its new Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU), formed last year following the passage of long-awaited anti-graft legislation. While observers were initially divided about the government's commitment to fighting corruption, the ACU has so far netted some big fish.
In January, Sereyvuth was joined in custody by Moek Dara, secretary general of the National Authority for Combating Drugs (NACD), and Hun Hean, the police chief of Banteay Meanchey province in northwest Cambodia . Observers began to speak of a coordinated crackdown.
"Our government has made a strong effort to crack down on all bad activity," said Phay Siphan, spokesman of the Council of Ministers. "Everyone has to be behind one regulation together, no matter the color of their party, no matter what their position." Moek Dara is accused of leading a ring of corrupt officials involved in extortion and drug trafficking. Hun Hean and his deputy Chhieng Son are also being held on drug charges.
By any assessment, action against corruption in Cambodia is long overdue. In its 2010 Corruption Perceptions Index, global graft watchdog Transparency International ranked Cambodia 154th out of 178 countries for public sector corruption. Bribe-taking permeates daily life at every level, from the school system where children are known to pay small sums to teachers in order to attend class, to the emergency rooms where patients have reportedly died because their family lacked sufficient "tea money" for medical staff.
Still, there are questions about the motives behind the ACU's recent series of arrests. Some observers see the crackdown as a sop to foreign donors who historically have provided well over half of the Cambodian government's annual budget. Since the early 1990s, anti-corruption measures have been a perennial demand of the country's international backers but the passage of an anti-graft law only took place in March 2010.
"Donors have failed to hold a small corrupt elite to account," said George Boden, a campaigner for international graft watchdog Global Witness. "Donors should ensure that central government does not exert an undue influence over the anti-corruption agencies, that all credible allegations of corruption are investigated and that whistleblowers are given the protection that