Immigration swoop on building site nets 107 illegals

Cornered: Some of the foreign workers rounded up in the raid on a construction site in Butterworth.

BUTTERWORTH: The state Immigration Department detained 107 foreigners at a construction site near Jalan Chain Ferry here during the ‘Ops Bersepadu’.

The 85 officers in the raid that included Civil Defence Department and Rela members had surrounded the seven-storey building before moving in.

State Immigration assistant director Abdul Rahman Hassan said 467 workers from Indonesia, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Nepal and Pakistan were screened during the operation at 11am yesterday.

“We checked floor by floor as the workers were living in makeshift quarters and on the seventh floor, we had difficulties getting in as steel bars blocked the entrance.

“We found 14 foreigners hiding there,” he said. “The 107 detained were 95 males, seven females, aged between 20 and 40, and three children aged between five and seven,” he said.

The detainees were taken to the Seberang Jaya headquarters for documentation and later sent to the Immigration detention camp in Juru.