Condo raids were lawful, says Ayob

Crying foul: Seventeen condo owners are saying their properties were damaged during the police operation against Nicky Gang. — CHAN TAK KONG/The Star

JOHOR BARU: Johor police have defended their raids on several units of a condominium linked to “Nicky Gang” at Setiawalk in Puchong last month.

State police chief Comm Datuk Ayob Khan Mydin Pitchay said the raids were carried out under Ops Pelican 3.0 to arrest the organised crime group leader Datuk Seri Nicky Liow Soon Hee and his henchmen.“A total of 220 officers and personnel from various departments and members of the General Operation Force were part of this special operation in the Klang Valley.

“About 70 raids were carried out to arrest the leader and founder of Winner Dynasty Group, whose operations are based there, and other syndicate members, ” he said in a statement.

Liow has gone into hiding and is now high on the police wanted list for alleged money laundering and leading an organised crime syndicate.

Comm Ayob said out of the 70 raids, 45 of them were carried out at several units of the condominium at Trigon Residence Setiawalk in Puchong.

“The raiding teams entered the units by breaking the door locks to carry out the search.

‘’Based on our intelligence, we had reasons to believe that the main suspect was hiding there with important documents pertaining to the case, ” he said.

Comm Ayob said the raids were done in accordance to provisions of the law under the Code of Criminal Procedure and Security Offences (Special Measures) Act.

Separately, several owners claimed that their units were damaged during the police raids, causing them to suffer thousands of ringgit in losses.

They wanted the police to compensate them for the damage.

One of the owners, who wanted to be known as Wendy, said she was informed by a neighbour on March 21 that the police were trying to break into her unit.

“I managed to speak to an inspector by phone. I informed my tenant to open the door but by then, it was already forced open, ” she said during a press conference on Friday.

Her tenant is an engineer and has got nothing to do with the money-laundering syndicate.

Altogether, 17 owners of the units had made police reports over the damage caused to the doors and grilles.

Members of the press were shown the damage in some of the units.

Wendy said the estimated damage was about RM30,000, adding that it was only for basic cost of repairs.

Another tenant, Darren Lim, said he had gone to work at about 7am during the raids.

‘’By the time I returned home at about 10pm, I saw that the back door and two room doors had been damaged.

‘’The house was in a mess and the fridge door was open, ” he said, adding that cost for the repairs was about RM3,000.

Unit owner Usha Devi said six policemen entered her unit but they were not in uniform and did not show her their identification cards.

“There were no female officers and none of them were wearing masks, ” said the accountant.

Lawyer Tiew Way Keng, who is representing the owners of the units, said they were not against the police at work but wanted them to be accountable for their actions.

“More than one month later, my clients still don’t know who is responsible for the damage, ” she said, adding that she would be writing in to the police on the matter.