KUALA LUMPUR: A senior immigration officer was among 21 people arrested over attempts to smuggle undocumented foreigners in the Klang Valley and Kedah.
In the first operation at the Bukit Kayu Hitam entry point on Saturday, 10 suspects, including the immigration officer, were detained.
Two syndicate agents, a local man and a Thai national known as “Toyu”, were detained.
Another local man, believed to be a transporter, was also detained, along with five Indian nationals and a Pakistani national.
“We also detained a senior immigration officer stationed at the checkpoint for allegedly acting as a facilitator in the illegal entry of migrants,” Immigration director-general Datuk Zakaria Shaaban said.
Initial investigations revealed that one of the Indian nationals had been blacklisted, while the Pakistani suspect was found to be using an allegedly fake e-visa, he said.
“The remaining foreign nationals are believed to be undocumented immigrants.
“We seized several items including five Indian and one Pakistani passport, Malaysian and Thai border passes, an immigration security stamp, 12 mobile phones and cash amounting to 30,000 Indian rupees (RM1,262).”
Zakaria said the syndicate is believed to have been involved in smuggling foreign nationals, mainly from India, into Malaysia through land checkpoints.
“The agent would arrange entry logistics, while the transporter would pose as a taxi driver.
“The migrants would then be ferried from Thailand into Malaysia,” he said.
Zakaria added that a “facilitator” here would endorse their passports despite the migrants not meeting entry requirements.
He said that the syndicate is believed to have charged RM1,000 per migrant, with RM400 allegedly paid to the officer for each passport endorsed.
“We believe the group has been active since early this year, causing an estimated loss of RM4.1mil in government revenue,” he added.
In a separate operation, 11 people, mostly Indonesians, were detained at Terminal Bersepadu Gombak and Terminal Bersepadu Selatan.
Based on intelligence, Zakaria said immigration officers tracked the arrival of a group of Indonesian nationals travelling on express buses from Kelantan to the Klang Valley.
“At Terminal Bersepadu Gombak, two Indonesian men and two women were detained,” he said in a statement yesterday.
Also detained was an Indonesian man believed to be acting as a transporter responsible for coordinating the migrants’ movements and logistics in Kuala Lumpur, he added.
Zakaria said that three Indonesian men and three women, believed to be linked to the same syndicate, were also detained at a separate operation at Terminal Bersepadu Selatan.
A vehicle used by the transporter to move migrants to their next destination was seized, he added.
Based on initial investigations, Zakaria said that the syndicate had shifted from using sea routes around Selangor to both air and land routes to avoid enforcement authorities.
“Many of the migrants were believed to have been blacklisted from entering Malaysia, prompting the syndicate to avoid direct flights into the country,” he said.
Among the routes identified were movement of foreigners from Indonesia to Singapore as a transit point, before being flown to Hat Yai, Thailand.
“Some were also believed to have transited through KL International Airport before continuing to Hat Yai,” he said.
Upon arrival in Hat Yai, the migrants were placed in safe houses before being smuggled into Kelantan through illegal entry points along the Thailand-Malaysia border near Bukit Bunga, Tanah Merah, he said.
