KUALA LUMPUR: A total of nine individuals, including five enforcement officers, were arrested on suspicion of smuggling\u00a0migrants into the country in an operation in Sabah last Thursday.
\nThe Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC), in a statement today, said the enforcement personnel, aged between 30 and 41\u00a0and included two women,\u00a0were arrested between\u00a02.30 pm and\u00a0 8.40 pm in a joint operation, code-named \u201cOp Lancar\u201d,\u00a0between the commission and the National Registration Department (JPN).
\nIt said the other four individuals, involving three\u00a0men and a woman, aged between 37\u00a0and 43,\u00a0\u00a0and believed to be working as agents for Indonesian workers, were arrested between\u00a03.30 pm and 6 pm\u00a0on the same day.
\nAccording to the statement, the modus operandi of the\u00a0syndicate was to charge\u00a0illegal immigrants or those without valid documents about\u00a0RM2,500 per head for their passage to leave Sabah via Tawau Airport to the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) using other persons\u2019 identities.
\nThe migrants will be given boarding passes based on the names stated in the MyKads there were given to them and their arrival at KLIA will be met by\u00a0enforcement officers who had been paid to let them through, thus enabling the migrants\u00a0to pass through the immigration checkpoint without any problems, it said.
\nBased on the\u00a0MACC\u2019s\u00a0investigation,\u00a0the syndicate,\u00a0believed to have been operating since 2018, \u00a0provides boarding passes to bring\u00a0in between five and 20 illegal immigrants\u00a0on each flight to KLIA.<\/p>\n
During\u00a0the operation, the MACC also confiscated several items such as mobile phones, Malaysian identity cards and Sabah exit stamps and arrested 12 illegal immigrants.
\nMeanwhile, the Immigration Department\u00a0in a separate statement, today confirmed that five Sabah Immigration Department officers were arrested by the MACC last Thursday for alleged involvement in the smuggling of illegal immigrants into the country.
\nIts director-general Datuk Ruslin Jusoh said the department is leaving the matter to the \u00a0MACC to investigate\u00a0and would extend its cooperation to ensure a transparent and fair investigation.
\nThe Immigration Department will not compromise on any of its officers who commit integrity violation violate is it\u00a0tarnishes the good name and image of the department.
\n\u201cWe will not protect those involved. Serious action and punishment will be taken, including dismissal, against those involved,\u201d he said.
\n— BERNAMA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
KUALA LUMPUR: A total of nine individuals, including five enforcement officers, were arrested on suspicion of smuggling\u00a0migrants into the country in an operation in Sabah last Thursday. The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC), in a statement today, said the enforcement personnel, aged between 30 and 41\u00a0and included two women,\u00a0were arrested between\u00a02.30 pm and\u00a0 8.40 pm in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":19367,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-19366","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-local-news"},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19366"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19366\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19368,"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19366\/revisions\/19368"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}