Immigration department nab five Bangladeshi men for producing forged passports to get Fomema documents

KUALA LUMPUR: A document forgery syndicate, masterminded by a Bangladeshi man, was busted by the Immigration department.

A total of five Bangladeshi men, including the mastermind, were detained in two separate raids in Petaling Jaya at about 9.05pm on Wednesday (Aug 28).

Immigration department director-general Datuk Ruslin Jusoh said the mastermind and four assistants offered their services to foreigners, who do not have passports, to obtain Foreign Workers’ Medical Examination Monitoring Agency (Fomema) documents.

"The syndicate members would go to a Fomema panel clinic to apply (for the documents) using forged passports. We believe they have gone to several clinics on 19 occasions.

"The mastermind would choose the panel clinics to go to," he said in a statement on Thursday (Aug 29).

The syndicate used WhatsApp to promote their services and charged RM500 to each customer for delivery of the Fomema documents, he said.

"We believe the syndicate has been operating for about four months.

"The mastermind has overstayed in the country while the other four suspects do not have valid travel documents or passes.

"We seized several items, including 29 forged passports consisting of 26 Bangladeshi passports, two Indonesian passports and a Myanmar passport as well as a laptop and a printer," he said.

Ruslin said those detained were brought to the Putrajaya Immigration depot for further investigation while a Malaysian man was issued notice to go to the Immigration office to assist with the investigation.

"We will continue to take stern action against anyone who commits offences under the Immigration Act and other relevant laws," he said.