Immigration Dept nabs Kl-bound illegals on their way to seek work

KUALA LUMPUR: Fourteen illegal immigrants have been detained by the Immigration Department at Jalan Duta here.

Immigration department director-general Datuk Seri Khairul Dzaimee Daud said the foreigners were transported in a bus after entering the country illegally via Chuping, Perlis.

“We got information that a group of illegal foreigners was being transported to Kuala Lumpur.

“A team of Immigration officers and personnel raided the bus and detained nine men and four women, all Indonesians, at about 10am on Tuesday,” he said in a statement here yesterday.

Checks on the foreigners’ passports revealed that the stamps by Thailand and Malaysia’s Immigration departments were believed to be fake, he said.

“Eight of those detained were blacklisted from entering Malaysia because of previous offences.”

Khairul Dzaimee said the syndicate transported the illegal foreigners via a flight from Indonesia to Thailand before guiding them into Malaysia through an illegal route across the land border.

“They would then board a bus to Kuala Lumpur,” he said.

“Each suspect admitted to having paid between RM5,000 and RM6,000 to an agent to enter Malaysia,” he said, adding that they were due to work at a place in Kuala Lumpur that they had previously worked in, though this time, under new employers.

All suspects were held at the Putrajaya Immigration depot.