KUALA LUMPUR: The Immigration Department mounted two major operations this week, rounding up 770 undocumented foreigners in Bukit Bintang and crippling a Bangladeshi-run passport forgery syndicate in the capital.
Immigration enforcement director Basri Othman said the Bukit Bintang raid, carried out between 7.30pm and 10.30pm, was launched after three weeks of public complaints about large groups of foreigners gathering at Jalan Bedara.
“Enforcement officers found an online gambling premises equipped with a CCTV monitoring system. When the authorities broke down the door, seven foreigners were busy engaged in online gambling, unaware of the presence of the personnel,” he told Bernama.
A total of 2,445 individuals were screened, 1,600 foreigners and 845 locals, with 770 foreigners arrested for various immigration offences, including overstaying, lacking
valid documents and possessing unrecognised cards or passes.
Those detained included 377 Bangladeshi, 235 Myanmar, 72 Nepalese, 58 Indian and 17 Indonesian men, two women, as well as nine additional individuals of different nationalities. The detainees, aged 21 to 65, were taken to Putrajaya for screening before being taken to the Bukit Jalil and Lenggeng depots for investigation.
Basri said they would be investigated under the Immigration Act 1959/63, the Passport Act 1966 and the Anti-Trafficking in Persons and Anti-Smuggling of Migrants Act 2007. He reminded employers not to harbour illegal immigrants, adding that action would be taken against those who did.
In a separate operation, the department dismantled a forgery syndicate run by Bangladeshi nationals that specialised in producing counterfeit passports for medical screenings.
Its director-general Datuk Zakaria Shaaban said three Bangladeshi men, aged between 19 and 41, were arrested in raids at Jalan Loke Yew and Jalan Razak Mansion in Kuala Lumpur, following three weeks of intelligence gathering.
“During the operation, we seized 16 passports, nine genuine and seven forged, along with forgery equipment including a computer, printers, passport pages and covers, embossing tools, cutters and coloured threads.”
Also seized were 133 unfinished passport booklets for Myanmar, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Indonesia, 11 mobile phones, RM2,100 in cash and a vehicle believed to have been used by the group.
He also said the syndicate supplied fake passports to workers at risk of failing mandatory medical checks. For a fee of RM150 to RM250, unfit workers used the forged documents to pass screenings under false identities before discarding them.
Investigations showed the syndicate, active for about three months, could produce counterfeit passports within two days. While most clients were Bangladeshi nationals, the group also relied on runners and employers to source customers.
