39 China nationals fined for overstaying, illegal entry

KOTA KINABALU: Thirty-nine China nationals were fined by the Sessions Court here yesterday for overstaying and illegal entry.

Judge Azreena Aziz imposed the fines on all the accused persons after they pleaded guilty as charged under the Immigration Act 1959/63.

For overstaying, seven persons, including three women, were fined RM10,000 each, in default, five months jail.

They allegedly stayed back in Sabah between one and two weeks after the expiry of their passports.

The other 32 persons, including three women, were each fined RM4,000, in default, four months jail for entering the State without valid travel documents.

All of the accused persons, aged between 18 and 33 years old, were also ordered to be referred to the Immigration Department after completing their sentence.

They were arrested at two separate premises here on October 23.

In mitigation, counsel Mohd Al Hafidz Mohd Lokman who represented all the accused persons, pleaded for a lower fine to be imposed on his clients citing that all the accused persons had no previous convictions and had regretted committing the offence.

In reply, the prosecution urged the court to impose an appropriate sentence on each of the accused persons, who were allegedly linked to a syndicate called ‘Macau Scam’.

On October 26, it was reported in the local dailies that this alleged scam syndicate had been busted with the arrest of 80 suspects from China.

The suspects were arrested following a police report lodged by an elderly man on December 5, 2018, who claimed to have been cheated of RM1.4 million after receiving a call allegedly from a senior police officer from Pulau Pinang, who informed him that his bank account was found to have been used for money laundering.