KUALA LUMPUR: A total of 16 individuals including company owners and expatriates were detained for allegedly bribing enforcement officers in connection with illegal e-waste processing activities.
Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) deputy chief commissioner Datuk Seri Ahmad Khusairi Yahaya said the arrests were made following a joint operation with the Immigration Department and Department of Environment (DOE) on 12 premises in Selangor and Johor.
"The premises were suspects of illegally processing and disposing raw materials such as metal, glass and plastic.
"The suspects aged between 30 and 40s were detained in Selangor and Selamat between 9.30am.and 12pm on Monday in an operation codenamed "Ops X".
"Some of the suspects were company owners who used expatriates to violate applications to become expatriates as well as bribing enforcement officers to protect them.
"The raids were conducted based on intelligence gathering for three months and all suspect were brought to the Melaka MACC office," he said when contacted on Tuesday (Feb 25).
The arrests showed the firm commitment of the MACC, Immigration and DOE in ensuring efforts to combat corruption involving the enforcement sector and the wellbeing of the enforcement are preserved, he said.
"We are investigating under Section 16 (b)(A) of the MACC Act 2009," he said.
