KUALA LUMPUR: More than 500 foreigners were nabbed following a nationwide immigration crackdown, with at least 200 hotspots identified.
Immigration director-general Datuk Zakaria Shaaban said Ops Mega, which began on Sunday, led to checks on 2,260 foreign nationals and employers.
“Of these, 503 foreigners, comprising 408 men and 95 women, were detained for suspected offences under the Immigration Act,” he told reporters after an operation in Jalan Kenanga yesterday.
He said the detainees, who included Bangladeshis, Myanmarese, Indonesians, Nepalese and Indians, will be placed at Immigration detention depots pending further investigation and action.
“Among the offences were staying in the country without valid travel documents, overstaying, breaching conditions of their passes and having unrecognised identification cards,” he added.
Zakaria said the most common offences were overstaying and abusing work passes.
“There were cases where individuals holding passes for the construction sector were instead employed at textile or clothing shops,” he said.
Zakaria said several United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) cardholders were also detained to verify the authenticity of their documents.
He said the department would continue to step up enforcement operations nationwide, focusing on foreign national hotspots.
Of the over 200 such hotspots identified, at least 100 were in the Klang Valley, he said, naming Jalan Kenanga as one of them.
Zakaria said the department was also studying whether increasing penalties for bosses hiring undocumented foreign workers would be a better deterrent than the current maximum compound of RM10,000 per worker.
“If this amount is still ineffective, we will review it and may propose to the government that the maximum compound be increased.”
Some employers had already been slapped with compounds amounting to hundreds of thousands of ringgit because they employed large numbers of undocumented foreign workers.
