The son of an Australian nurse charged with running a surrogacy agency in Cambodia has been detained and is set to be deported from the country.
Dylan Charles, the 26 year-old son of Tammy Davis-Charles, was found shirtless while walking along a Phnom Penh street at 7am last Wednesday, according to local police chief Kul Sophat, who was quoted in The Cambodia Daily.
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Cambodia's surrogacy scandal
Inside this poor village in Cambodia, Melbourne nurse Tammy Davis-Charles illegally recruited commercial surrogates before she was jailed.
"He lost his mind. He tried to throw rocks at people's cars," Mr Sophat told the newspaper.
"We sent him immediately to the immigration office for questioning because we didn't have anyone who could question him in English," he said, adding he could not confirm local media reports that Mr Charles was intoxicated at the time.
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Ms Davis-Charles is in a Phnom Penh jail awaiting trial on charges relating to her allegedly operating a commercial surrogacy agency in the country where the government has declared the practice to be human trafficking, pending formation of legislation that has not yet been drafted.
She has not commented publicly on the charges.
But Mr Charles has told Cambodian media that his mother was the innocent victim of a government set-up.
He said Cambodian surrogate mothers contracted through his mother's company Fertility Solutions PGD are continuing to be paid and taken care of despite a government crackdown on commercial surrogacy.
Mr Charles has thanked people supporting his family in Facebook posts but has also criticised the Australian embassy, the media and a local lawyer.
Police allege that Fertility Solutions PGD signed at least 25 surrogacy agreements, most of them with Australian biological parents who paid US$50,000 a baby.
A multimillion-dollar surrogacy industry emerged in Phnom Penh in 2015 after surrogacy operators were chased out of Thailand, Sri Lanka and India.
The crackdown in Phnom Penh prompted scores of pregnant surrogates, most of them from impoverished villages, to go into hiding, fearing arrest, or to travel to countries like Thailand, where the Australian embassy in Bangkok is still processing passports for surrogate-born babies.
In 2014, Thailand's military government shut down a booming surrogacy industry in Bangkok following the Baby Gammy scandal.
More than 70 Cambodian women are believed to be pregnant with the babies of Australian biological parents.
Cambodia's Secretary of State at the Interior Ministry, Chou Bun Eng, has urged the Australians involved to declare they are the biological parents or risk being treated as suspects in human trafficking.
Ms Bun Eng has also urged the surrogates to come forward so they can receive medical checks and medicines during their pregnancies.
Cambodian television last week showed Mr Charles in a news bulletin handcuffed and with wounds on his left knee and foot.
"Happened when my passport n cash/cards stolen," he wrote in a comment alongside the clip, according to The Cambodia Daily.
Mr Charles has been visited by Australian embassy officials.
An Interior Ministry official said Mr Charles was being detained in immigration detention pending his deportation for allegedly destroying private property and being without a passport.