KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 3 — The Immigration Department has arrested 36 foreign nationals trying to enter Malaysia illegally on an express bus.
Its director-general Datuk Ruslin Jusoh said the foreigners, 32 men and four women, were arrested in a special operation at 4.30 pm at Terminal Bersepadu Selatan-Bandar Tasik Selatan (TBS-BTS) on Aug 30 and were onboard a bus from Kelantan.
He added that the operations team detected three different buses smuggling the illegal immigrants along the East Coast Expressway and trailed them to the TBS-BTS.
“A total of 20 Bangladeshi men along with 12 men and four women, all Myanmar nationals, 19 to 45, were caught upon disembarking and their passports did not have any valid security stamps, while some of them did not even possess valid travel documents,” he said in a statement today, adding that checks with the department’s system revealed that some of them had been blacklisted for previous offences.
He also shared that syndicates would charge such illegals RM10,000 per person to smuggle them from their countries of origin through neigbouring countries using illegal methods, and they would be brought usually to Penang or Kuala Lumpur to work illegally using public transport to elude the authorities.
“Those arrested today are suspected to have committed offences under the Immigration Act 1956/63 and have been brought to the Semenyih Immigration Depot for further investigation,” he added.
