Immigration Dept Storms Cameron Highland, Over 400 Foreigners Nabbed

CAMERON HIGHLAND, Nov 20 (Bernama) -- The Immigration Department has arrested 468 foreigners for various immigration offences, in Op Gempur involving several raids here.

The raids involving 547 members and immigration officers were carried out from 11 am to 2 pm today in four zones around the highlands involving business areas, construction sites and vegetable farms.

Bernama, which participated in the operation, found that most of the foreigners were busy packing vegetables and were unaware of the presence of the authorities, causing them to not have time to escape.

Immigration director-general Datuk Zakaria Shaaban said the raids were planned a month ago following complaints from the community here.

"Through the intelligence conducted, we found that this district has become a focus of foreigners to work in addition to being involved in agricultural activities in the surrounding areas," he said.

The influx of foreigners in the highlands, he said, has been detected in recent years, causing concern among the local community.

He said the hilly terrain of the area and its distance from the city caused foreigners to choose to come to the resort area, coupled with the attitude of local business owners who like to employ them.

In the operation, he said, a total of 1,886 foreigners were checked and 468 were detained for various immigration offences, including expired passes and no travel documents, and some even presented temporary work visit passes that were suspected to be fake.

"The foreigners detained involved 175 Myanmar nationals, Bangladesh (174), Indonesia (67), Nepal (20), Pakistan (16), India (11) and one each from the Philippines, Thailand, Sri Lanka, China and Cambodia and they comprised 388 men, 76 women and four children," he said.

According to him, all those detained are aged between 20 and 54 and will be sent to Immigration Detention Depots in Kelantan, Perak and Selangor.

According to arrest statistics, since the beginning of this year until Nov 18, a total of 83,994 foreigners have been detained nationwide in the department's efforts to combat the issue of illegal immigrants.

-- BERNAMA