MELAKA: A housewife’s alleged masquerade as a senior Immigration director unravelled at a cafe here, where she was arrested while meeting a foreign national seeking a work permit.
Melaka Immigration director Anirwan Fauzee Mohd Aini said the 50-year-old allegedly used a fake departmental identification card and a full uniform to collect payments of up to RM6,000 for handling foreign workers’ work permit applications.
He said the mother of five was detained at a cafe in Taman Malim Jaya here at about 6pm on Tuesday (Sept 29) during "Ops Serkap", conducted by the department’s enforcement division.
“The suspect was meeting her ‘client’, a Chinese national, over a foreign worker’s work pass application when the raid took place.
"Even after she was detained, she repeatedly insisted to our enforcement officers that she was a senior Immigration officer,” he said on Wednesday (Sept 30).
Anirwan Fauzee said preliminary investigations indicated that the suspect had been carrying out the alleged activities for more than a year, moving around statewide without a fixed location to evade detection.
He said she allegedly claimed to be both the director-general of integrity and a senior Immigration director at the department’s headquarters.
To support those claims, she wore a uniform complete with rank insignia and badges, carried a forged Immigration identification card and posted photographs of herself in uniform on social media, he added. Anirwan Fauzee said officers seized a car, three mobile phones and a black uniform with accessories, including senior officer rank insignia, collar badges, an integrity badge, a name tag, service ribbons and work shoes.
He said other items seized included two grey headscarves, two black T-shirts bearing the Immigration logo, a forged departmental identification card, a name stamp, an approval letter bearing the department’s letterhead and two sets of laboratory result letters.
He said the suspect was remanded for four days by the Sessions Court in Alor Gajah on Wednesday (Sept 30).
The case is being investigated under Sections 56(1)(k) and 56(1)(l) of the Immigration Act 1959/63.
