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PUTRAJAYA: The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) arrested four more people in connection with the alleged “sealing facility” union involving officials from the Immigration Department.
Sources said one of the suspects is an immigration officer and the other three are foreign worker agents.
The four, aged between 28 and 52, were detained on Thursday (November 19) at MACC headquarters and its Shah Alam office when summoned for their statements.
MACC prosecutors have obtained a six-day pretrial detention starting Friday (November 20) for all four.
This brings the total number of arrests against members of this union to 50 in the operation called “Ops Selat”: 28 immigration officials, 17 agents of foreign workers and five civilians.
More than 800,000 ringgit in cash, 26 luxury cars and four high-powered motorcycles were among the items seized from union members.
This does not include other assets such as houses, land, jewelry, and designer bags.
The sources said initial investigations showed the union was involved in international human trafficking activities, particularly workers from China, Vietnam, Indonesia and Bangladesh.
The union was believed to have provided two types of services, one of which was the “air passport” service, in which agents collected passports from foreign workers and illegal immigrants whose social visiting passes have expired.
The passports would receive Immigration entry and exit stamps from the union to allow for the extension of the permits, which is a violation of procedure as the owner of a travel document must be present during the immigration process, said one source.
The second service is to “set up counters” at KLIA and KLIA2 for illegal immigrants who have been blacklisted and whose visas have expired. For a fee of between RM500 and RM6,000, they could return to their home countries – Enter Malaysia, according to sources.
Sources said that during the course of the investigation, authorities were shocked to discover that a KP19 grade immigration clerk could afford four luxury cars: a Phantom Rolls Royce, a Mustang, a Range Rover and an Audi.
“Investigators also found that a local foreign workers agent assisted with car custody and that luxury cars were part of the reward for so-called counter installations at KLIA2,” said the same source.
MACC’s director of investigations, Datuk Norazlan Mohd Razali, confirmed the arrests and did not rule out that more members of the union would be captured in the coming days.
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