PUTRAJAYA: Illegal immigrants have been buying fake passports for RM500 each from a syndicate led by a Bangladeshi man who operated in an apartment in Jalan Kepong.
The passports were printed at the apartment before they were couriered to buyers.
“The syndicate is believed to have been supplying fake passports to foreigners for about a year,” said Immigration Department director-general Datuk Ruslin Jusoh.
He said a team from the department’s intelligence and special operations division carried out an operation codenamed Op Vista Mutiara on Monday.
“The team caught two Bangladeshi men aged 26 and 28 at around 6.30am at Kepong Commercial Park.
“They were carrying fake Indonesian and Myanmar passports,” he said at a press conference yesterday.
The men were believed to be on their way to post the passports to customers.
After interrogating the suspects, they brought the enforcement team to an apartment where they arrested a man believed to be the mastermind known as “Shimul”, aged 33.
“Officers seized 16 Indonesian and Bangladeshi passports suspected to be fake, two laptops and a printer,” Ruslin said, adding the apartment was used as a centre to print passports.
He said the syndicate’s modus operandi was to offer their services to people from Indonesia, Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Pakistan and Nepal who do not have passports and identification documents.
“These passports will be sold to them for RM500 to RM700 each.
“The syndicate could produce five to 10 copies of fake passports daily,” he said.
“Investigations found that the syndicate received payments online and would post the passports once the documents are printed,” added Ruslin.
All the suspects have been remanded for 14 days for investigation under the Immigration Act 1959/63, the Passports Act 1966 and the Immigration Regulations 1963.
